


May 16th

by angelinthecity



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Eventual Smut, Fate & Destiny, First Meetings, Flashbacks, Fluff, Happy Ending, Light Angst, Literary References & Allusions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Reunions, Romance, Slow Burn, Talking, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-02-29 02:16:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 42,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18769138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelinthecity/pseuds/angelinthecity
Summary: Oliver never gets the chance to go to Italy in 1983. Instead, he meets Elio for the first time on a spring evening in 1988. They are attracted to each other like magnets, but life’s impossibilities pull them apart in the morning. To make it easier to say goodbye, Oliver suggests a pact to meet ten years later; same time, same place.Takes place in two timelines: on May 16th, 1988, and on the same day in 1998.[COMPLETED Aug 29, 2019]





	1. The Bar

**Author's Note:**

> This story explores a what-if: If Oliver had never applied for the summer residence with the Perlmans, would he and Elio have ended up meeting, regardless? Would they have fallen into the same life-changing intimacy?
> 
> Please do note the tags and the chapter count; this really will be a slowest of builds with lots of talking and UST and Elio/Oliver interactions which all are my favorite things in the world to write. If that sounds like something you might enjoy, I would love to have you along for this journey towards, yes, their happy ending.

**Saturday, May 16th, 1998**

**Boston**

 

 

There it was. Bar Stelle.

Oliver saw the sign from across the street and so surprisingly little had changed in ten years that he had to stop for a moment. The awning was worn-out red just as it had been back then, the letter R of the sign hanging like it would fall off any minute.

It was barely noon, so the place was still closed, but Oliver could imagine the booths inside looking exactly the same with their chocolate leather seats. With their dark wooden tables narrow enough to let him count the golden flecks in the eyes of the boy who had once sat there across from him; yet wide enough to make everything between the two of them look appropriate to the outsider’s eye.

“Dad, Ben said there are not going to be sharks. You said there would be sharks!”

Oliver was jolted from his thoughts by his twelve-year-old son Joshua tugging on his sleeve.

“What?”

“Ben said they don’t have any sharks at the aquarium. But they do, don’t they?”

“Yes, yes, they do,” he assured Joshua, distracted. “Your brother’s just trying to mess with you.”

As Joshua ran to catch up to his older brother and their mother who were walking ahead, Oliver turned to take one last look at the bar.

Tonight at midnight, the kid could be there again.

Except he wouldn’t be a kid anymore. Not that he had really been a kid back then either, but young, so young that Oliver only would have ruined him.

Ten years ago, when Oliver had last been at that street corner, he had been 29 and the boy had been barely 22. It had started with the first handshake, maybe earlier. Maybe the moment Oliver saw him at that platform, swaying to the music from his headphones. Maybe the moment he had looked into Oliver’s eyes, headphones no longer on.

Just one evening, turned into night, turned into morning – that was all there had been. But it had been enough. Oliver had lived on that memory through many a difficult year at home.

Well, obviously it hadn’t been enough, not really.

Oliver would have wanted to keep him. And even more desperately, the boy had wanted to stay.

But that’s not how life worked, and in an attempt to make the parting easier, Oliver had made a whimsical, spur-of-the-moment suggestion.

“If we still feel this way in ten years, then we'll meet up again.”

He had dried the boy’s tears with the pad of his thumb on the sixteenth of May, 1988.

Now it was May 16th, 1998, and Oliver was in Boston again, this time to celebrate his and Joshua’s birthdays. They shared the same birthday, and as soon as Joshua had been old enough to understand what birthdays were, the father and son had always celebrated them together. There was no reason why this year should have been any different, even though Oliver’s mother had interrogated him about the choice of their birthday weekend destination.

“For heaven’s sake Oliver, what are you and Annie thinking, taking them to Boston for the weekend? Wouldn’t it have been more fun to take the kids to the beach or to a resort,” she had asked when they had talked a week earlier.

Always the obedient son, Oliver had a habit of calling her from his office on Fridays, after classes and before heading home.

“They have parks in Boston, mother, and the aquarium,” Oliver had replied curtly, slightly annoyed. He had had the phone on speaker mode while he gathered papers from his desk and stuffed them in his briefcase to be graded at home over the weekend. “Or we can take the duck tour. It’ll be fun. You know how the boys are at the beach house; as long as there’s water in some form, they are happy.”

Oliver knew he was right and that his mother was just doing what she did, scrutinizing and second-guessing his decisions. After Oliver’s father had passed away, she no longer had him to boss around and after a period of mourning, she had gained back her energy. Most of it was now keenly felt by her neighbors as well as, via telephone, her son.

While planning the trip to Boston, Oliver had, yes, been aware of the date and that the ten years of his pact with the most enchanting boy he had ever seen would be up now, but he kept telling himself it was just a coincidence. His closest colleague at his department at the Columbia University had just been to Boston with her own teens and she had recommended a great restaurant that the kids had enjoyed; that’s where Oliver had surely gotten the idea.

It did not mean that he was planning to go to that downtown bar at midnight to meet up with the kid. It was preposterous to even suggest the possibility.

Ben and Joshua would go to bed by ten, maybe ten-thirty since it was a Saturday, and after that, Oliver would share one of those half-bottles of wine from the hotel minibar with Annie to toast to his birthday just between the adults, and then they would go to sleep.

Never again would he get close enough to those green eyes and dark lashes; close enough to count the golden flecks. Never again, except in his sleep, where they regularly haunted him. Oliver was never sure whether they beckoned him to remember the things that had happened or to imagine the ones that hadn’t.

“Dad, Ben said that people eat shark fins, do they?”

Joshua’s fervent question served as a reminder of the present moment again.

“I’m afraid your big brother is right about that one. Apparently, they get boiled into a soup.”

“Eww!” Joshua was first disgusted by the idea, but after a moment’s consideration he added sadly: “Poor sharks.”

Oliver tousled his younger son’s hair, happy about the turn his perspective had taken; that the little boy had compassion for the noble animals that he was so obsessed with. Sharks had been all his brother and parents, and the rest of their car on the train, had heard about during the ride from New York that morning.

The business man sitting across the aisle had leaned in at some point and Oliver had prepared himself to apologize for Joshua’s lengthy monologues about the lifespans of various shark species, but the man had just smiled and commented on how smart kids he and Annie seemed to have.

They really had great kids, Oliver whole-heartedly agreed with that. So today, he had decided to just cherish the opportunity to spend the entire day with them and concentrate on the fun they would all have, first at the aquarium and later at the birthday dinner. He would forget about any silly ideas about meeting people in bars at midnight.

The whole pact thing resembled more a plot from a movie, anyway, than real life.

And with Joshua and Ben now bickering and playfighting to the point of almost falling off the busy sidewalk in downtown Boston, there was no question about that; this was definitely real life.

Oliver hurried to catch up to Annie and their sons and managed to grab Ben by the arm just as he was about to trip onto the street.

“Dad, Joshua pushed me!”

“But I don’t want to eat the sharks! Ben said he’s going to make me eat the shark fin soup!”

“No, he won’t. I’m not even sure where you would find it,” Oliver sighed.

 

 

Oliver didn’t know it at the time, but while he was debating the availability of shark-based foods with his sons, no more than two miles south from them, the young man with the golden flecks in his eyes was in his own living room, getting ready for the opening concert of his first tour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, and a special shoutout to a comment by Marauder_the_Slash_Nymph on one of my previous works; it set this plot idea into motion in my brain, drawing inspiration loosely also from the concept in the film _Before Sunrise_.
> 
> The next chapter coming up very soon. In it, we’ll check in with Elio.


	2. The Plan

Soft steam rose from the surface of the starch-white cloth, evaporating into the air as Elio Perlman glided the iron along the hem of his dress shirt. He moved it along the garment the way Mafalda, the maid of his family back in Italy, had taught him right before he had moved out of his childhood home.

Poor Mafalda; Elio hadn’t been the most grateful pupil, as at first, he had hated ironing with a passion. But over the years that followed he had learned to enjoy it, nowadays even finding it meditative and preferring to do it himself, even now that he wasn’t a student anymore and instead of scrambling to make ends meet, could have easily afforded the regular dry cleaning.

In fact, ironing was one of the rare household chores he liked or kept at. During the one visit Mafalda had made to the States with Elio’s parents, she had muttered under her breath that Elio’s housekeeping style was still that of a spoiled child.

His father had come to his defense.

“I would rather call it bohemian,” he had said, patting Elio on the shoulder.

They had both probably been right; when Elio was home, his attention was usually directed at practicing or reading, rather than chores.

But this was the one exception. He appreciated the way the manual, repetitive movements of ironing calmed him especially before performances. The routine of the work allowed his mind to wander. To play his favorite pieces in his mind, think his way through difficult sections, come up with ideas for new compositions.

Today was the day of the opening concert of his first tour, the first actual tour. Not a one-time thing, not playing as a hired hand at someone’s retirement party, no ensembles – a real tour with stops in several cities with a repertoire that he had been able to choose.

Yet, his mind wandered less around the concert he had ahead of him, and more around a topic that had been a burning question on his mind for days. Maybe weeks or months. On and off for years, really.

On this very same day ten years ago, going home from his classes at the Conservatory, Elio had met a confused young man with the bluest eyes and the most intoxicating voice.

He had been the first person in Elio’s life to see him, truly see him, and not just with his blue eyes but with his heart. It had all happened during the course of the one single night they had had together. Having to say goodbye to the man had left Elio inconsolable.

The man’s suggestion that they meet again in ten years if they still felt that way after all that time, had been on the back of Elio’s mind throughout the years.

He knew that the man, the most beautiful man that had ever existed, hadn’t counted on him to even remember the pact, let alone show up.

“You will find someone else to feel this way with,” the man had insisted, his fingertips gently grazing the side of Elio’s face. “I will become a fleeting memory you will fondly laugh about one day.”

And Elio had tried. Oh, he had tried. With both boys and girls.

Up until then, the former had been more of an abstract; a what-if, rather than a reality.

Because ever since his teenage summers in Italy when more skin had been available to the eye than his hormonal mind could handle, he had known that the bare hip of a male had sent his thoughts racing equally to the curve of a breast. Yet, those feelings for boys had always stayed in check until that very day. That young university professor with golden hair had been the first one with whom Elio’s feelings had spilled over, so much so that there had been no more hiding from them.

Since then there had been others, sometimes interspersed with a particularly interesting girl.

Some had been otherworldly beautiful, others he had admired for their creativity, and then there had been the ones who had just been there at the right time on a miserable lonely night. But after that one man, no one else had managed to make him feel like the world was right side up. Like he had nothing to hide and everything to gain.

Thus, this day had occupied Elio’s thoughts at an increasing frequency during the past few months. The man had been married back then, had had children who would now be in their teens; he surely would not show up now. So why was Elio even considering returning to Bar Stelle at midnight? He had talked himself into it a hundred times by now – and then talked himself out of it times hundred and one.

The thing was, Elio kept waiting for a sign.

Because his going but the man not showing up would have been the ultimate let down, pathetic, foolish. At thirty-two, one had to have better ways of dating people than being hung up on someone they met once, for one night, ten years ago, right?

If he was going to take that step, to go to that bar and wait for midnight to come around, Elio wanted to know that the universe was siding with him, and not setting him up for a disappointment. Because this would not be the same as merely being stood up on a blind date.

No, it would mean that Elio would need to reassess his ideals about what was possible within human connection and intimacy. To re-evaluate the significance of the night when he had momentarily woken up before dawn, only to find himself safely in the man’s embrace and falling back to sleep listening to his heartbeat just beneath his skin.

The significance of that would have been altered forever if it turned out that he had only imagined the connection. That his memories of it had falsely grown sweeter over the years, or worse, that it had been in his head only and for the man it had been nothing but a light-hearted interlude.

 

 

Elio placed the iron in its holder on the ironing board and admired his work on the front and back of the shirt before moving on to the sleeves.

It was only noon so there were still twelve hours to go and he had a concert, and an important one at that, to perform at before midnight would come around, so maybe he should concentrate on successfully getting through the show first.

This was, after all, home territory for him after his years at the Boston Conservatory, and the first concert of his entire tour. People would come to the Symphony Hall to see the homegrown talent and he did not want to screw up or let them down.

Which could easily happen, if he was distracted by thoughts of a handsome stranger with a shiny watch on his tanned wrist and large hands that one could never have guessed were able to caress Elio’s face so tenderly. Especially after they had also been able to catch him so firmly when he had–

Elio was shaken out of his thoughts by his telephone ringing loudly, the sharp sound filling the entire apartment.

As he walked to the kitchen to pick it up, he reminded himself to look into turning down the volume of the ringtone, it scared him half to death every time.

“Hello?”

“Hi, it’s me.“ The voice of Elio’s manager was calm as always, even though Chloe most likely had a thousand things on her plate as she always did on the show days. “I just wanted to ask if you had decided on the encores yet. The house manager wanted to know. One or two?”

Elio lodged the phone between his shoulder and ear as he walked back to the living room to resume his ironing.

“I think two. The Chopin and then _After Midnight_.”

 _“After Midnight?_ Tonight? Are you sure? You haven’t played it very much.”

“It belongs here. In Boston.”

“Okay, then. And will Flynn be coming? Do I need to save house seats?”

Elio glanced at the cardboard box in his hallway. Books, CD’s, some red, bunched-up fabric that was probably a scarf. Or a sweater. He wasn’t sure; Flynn had worn a lot of red.

Elio really should have looked into getting rid of the box, it had been a while. There had been fights earlier, too, about the same thing, but this time it had been final and it was unlikely that the contents of the box would ever find their places on Elio’s shelves again.

“I don’t think so. I thought I told you that we…” he trailed off.

“Got it. Just double-checking. So what time should I send the car for you?”

“Yes, about that. I might walk. Or take the subway.”

Chloe sighed. “Elio, you can’t take the subway in your tux.”

“I’ll figure it out. I’ll change there or something.”

“I can’t have you show up covered with subway grime, Elio. Just take the car? I’ll have it pick you up by seven. I’ve already allowed you to keep ironing your own outfits before your shows.”

“I like doing it.”

“You’re too independent, Elio. Tell me one pianist who irons their own clothes before the opening concert of their tour?”

“I’m not like most pianists,” Elio reminded her.

“That you are not. Thankfully.”

“Ha. But I really need to get back to said ironing, Chloe. I’ll see you there.”

“See you there. And Elio?”

“Yeah?”

“It’ll be great,” Chloe said warmly.

He nodded, even though Chloe couldn’t see him and hung up the phone.

The thought had come to him during the phone call and now he knew what to do.

He would take the subway to the Symphony Hall, and that would require him to go through the exact spot where he had met the man ten years ago. Maybe returning to the scene of the crime, so to speak, would give him clarity on what to do tonight. Maybe he would get a sign from the universe.

Yes, that’s what he would do.

With the newly-made decision under his belt, Elio grabbed the iron with renewed vigor and started briskly smoothing out the rest of the sleeves on the shirt.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your interest in this, it’s great to have you here. 
> 
> Next chapter sometime next week; in it, we will head back to 1988.


	3. The Train

At the aquarium, Oliver’s sons found the shark section easily and then it was impossible to get Joshua to move anywhere else. He was mesmerized by the majestic animals and refused to join the rest of them for the 3D film about coral reefs.

“Annie, why don’t you and Ben just go watch the film,” Oliver finally suggested when the auditorium attendants were announcing their final call for the showing. “I can stay here with Joshua.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. I don’t mind. Let’s just let him enjoy this, it’s why we are here after all.”

“Okay. We’ll try and come find you two right after the show. It’s only going to be thirty minutes, I think.”

“I’m pretty sure you’ll still find us right here,” Oliver said, nodding towards Joshua who was practically glued to the tank, nose pressed against the glass. “It doesn’t look like he’s in a hurry to leave.”

“Got it. By the way Oliver, I think we’re all going to be pretty beat after dinner because of our early start. I think we should just head back to the hotel after and skip the movie idea,” Annie suggested.

Oliver was puzzled. “And just stay at the hotel?”

“The kids will be happy to get back to their Game Boys and you and I can rest. You can read one of your books or something. Unless you had other plans for tonight?”

The image of Bar Stelle and the memory of its dining area filling with the green-eyed boy’s wheezing laughter flashed through Oliver’s mind, but he concurred: “No, no other plans.”

 

 

After Annie and Ben were gone, Oliver took a seat at the back of the hall alongside other tired parents while Joshua kept going from info board to info board, reading about the animals and taking pictures through the glass with his camera. Oliver and Annie had gotten it for him together before the trip, as an early birthday present. She had done the research on what would be a good model for a twelve-year-old and Oliver had picked it up in the city.

Sitting on the bench, surrounded by the eerie, electric blue glow of the shark tanks, Oliver started thinking how he had almost come here, to the aquarium, on that evening ten years ago. How differently everything might have gone if he had succeeded in ending up here, instead of taking the wrong train.

 

 

It had been because of the long day.

After all, Oliver had lived in Cambridge for his undergraduate years so even a few years later, he should have been more than familiar with the train lines. But similarly to today, he had arrived on the early morning train from New York. He had worked on his lecture on the train instead of catching more sleep, and then gone directly to the Harvard University to give the talk. Without a moment’s rest during the day, it was no wonder he hadn’t been as alert as usual afterwards.

When his responsibilities at the university had been over with, Oliver had only made a brief stop at the hotel, to call home to Annie who had answered on the second ring.

“Hey, it’s me.”

“Hi darling, happy birthday! How’s Boston?”

“Thanks honey. And everything’s fine here. How are the kids?”

“They are great. Except Josh got one of his tantrums again. They just had their dinner.”

“Was the parsley in the wrong place on his plate again?” Oliver rolled his eyes as he sat down on the bed. These days it was a continuous challenge to get through a meal without an incident. As a two-year-old, Joshua was particular about unexpected things and when they didn’t go his way, he made sure everyone knew about it.

“No, I know to put it on the side now,” Annie laughed. “How was your lecture?“

“It was great, the students got really involved in the discussions.”

“More so than in your classes at Columbia?”

Annie had always been supportive of Oliver’s career as best she could, even if she didn’t exactly share his enthusiasm for his field. Still, she asked about his days, about his students, and knew that he did enjoy teaching, but that his real passion lay in writing about his own research.

That was why she had felt sorry that Oliver had had to give up on an opportunity to truly delve into it when she got pregnant. Information about summer residencies in Italy had circulated within Oliver’s department at Columbia that fall, and he had already filled out an application, but then Annie revealed the news and the application never got sent. Instead of getting a chance to write his book in the sunny Italy during the months off from teaching, Oliver had finished it in-between the nightly feedings of their first-born.

“Yes, the Harvard students were very insightful and eager to debate from multiple perspectives. But I’m still glad I’m coming home tomorrow,” Oliver admitted.

“Me too,” Annie said softly.

Oliver smiled. “Okay, so I’m at the hotel now but I’ve got to get going soon. I’m still planning to go and see the exhibition professor Stein told me about.”

“What exhibition was that again?” Plates and mugs clinked against the sink in the background of the call as Annie started to clear up the kids’ dishes from the dinner table.

“The one where they’ve reimagined scenes from Ancient Greece through modern art. I think I mentioned it to you earlier. Or maybe I didn’t.”

“Sounds great. Is it at that place where we were that one time?”

“No, it’s not at the Contemporary, this is a small gallery off Boylston. Or Newbury, I’ll have to check. But they are promising heavy rain for this evening so I’m trying to make it back before that.” Holding the phone with one hand, Oliver already started unbuttoning his shirt with the other. The one he had worn for the lecture, a brand-new Ralph Lauren one that Annie had gotten for him specifically for the Harvard visit, seemed way too formal for his night off.

“Well, have fun sweetie, I love you. I hope you manage to stay dry.”

“I’ll try. Goodnight. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“We’ll be waiting, with your birthday cake. Ben wanted to bake you one, so we did. The extent of his help was debatable, but let’s say he was in the vicinity when the cake was made. Joshua mainly contributed by spreading flour around the kitchen as much as he could while I wasn’t watching.”

“I can imagine. Can’t wait to get home. Love you.”

And with that Oliver set the phone back on the hotel room desk.

 

 

 _“Closed on Mondays_.”

That’s what the sign on the door of the art gallery stated and Oliver groaned. He should’ve called ahead and checked before coming all the way down here.

He stared at the sign for a while, but it wouldn’t magically disappear, and Oliver had to admit his defeat.

Sighing, he decided he would just catch the same train back to the hotel and try and find dinner somewhere. Or perhaps go visit the aquarium; it was supposed to be open and close by at least. He remembered also having seen a couple of okay-looking restaurants near the hotel; one of them would surely do for dinner afterwards.

Without paying much attention, he hurried back to the T station, down the stairs to the platform and into a train along with the rest of the rush-hour crowd.

He managed to find a seat but quickly gave it up for an elderly woman, and ended up standing in the aisle between two well-dressed men who looked like they could be bankers or stock brokers. Oliver started to feel a little self-conscious in his sweater and tweed jacket, but university professor’s pay didn’t allow him to buy fancy suits, especially with two young children at home.

Oliver had paid too much attention on the men and their clothing and too little on the train journey, because when the train pulled out of the next station, he managed to get a quick look at the name of the station, and it wasn’t the stop he had been expecting.

Oliver wasn’t sure if he had seen correctly. He tried to listen to the announcements more closely and when he then heard the Symphony station called out as the next stop, his suspicions were confirmed.

He had taken the wrong train and this one was going in the opposite direction, every stop taking him further away from downtown and his hotel.

 

 

Oliver got out at the next stop, at the Symphony Hall, with a goal to try and find a map of the train lines to see what the quickest route back to his hotel would be.

He found a map right after the turnstiles and while he was studying the board, a new crowd of passengers came flooding down the stairs. Oliver glanced at the stream of people, moving out of their way, when his eyes landed on a college kid in a fluorescent blue jacket, with headphones on, holding a Walkman in one hand and some kind of a folder in the other. The boy was skinny and the backpack he carried was hanging off of him, seemingly oversized for him. He glanced back at Oliver when he passed him by along with the other people, and Oliver quickly turned away, back to the map.

Oliver took his time finding out which platform he should choose, not wanting to end up on a wrong train again, and when he was confident enough about his choice, he passed through the turnstiles to the train tracks.

The first thing he noticed was the boy from earlier, standing at the end of the platform. His shoulders were moving along to what Oliver assumed was the music from his headphones.

Oliver stayed at the other end and couldn’t help but steal looks at the kid. He seemed so delicate and yet confident, but without any of the typical college kid pretension. None of the I-own-the-world attitude that Oliver kept seeing in his students; usually the more often the younger they were. He felt light years older than them sometimes. That seven to ten-year age difference between them and him seemed like a lifetime in life experience. Occasionally he envied their blind trust in the world, the confidence that the world would give them what they want, but more often than not, he was cynically content in knowing that the world would soon teach them better. It would brutally rip them of the know-it-all attitude that they exuded.

But there was none of that in this boy. Instead, during the brief moment earlier when his eyes had met Oliver’s, he had seen intellect in his gaze, a yearning curiosity.

The boy was tall, lanky even, but his little movements now on the platform were graceful, like he was immersed in his own world between his headphones, knowing every note coming out of them beforehand.

More people kept gathering on the platform, but no trains were arriving into the station and people started to look at their watches, anxious to get to their homes. Everyone except Oliver, who couldn’t have cared less about the trains anymore.

He started feeling hot.

It wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling, albeit one that he preferred not to get visits from. Months could go by without an incident, and then there would be a shirtless young man playing basketball on one of the neighbors’ driveways when he would come home from work. Those nights, after the kids were already asleep, Annie would be giggling and wondering what had gotten into him.

Oliver took another look at the boy and the boy turned his head at the same moment, causing Oliver to quickly avert his eyes as if he had been burned.

He hadn’t done anything wrong.

Still, he moved further away, pretended to look at the subway map on the platform even though he had figured out the correct train earlier already.

Oliver’s eyes skimmed the maze of the colored lines on the map without really registering any of them while his mind raced. If he just wouldn’t look again, he might be able to distract himself enough and forget the kid altogether, without having to resort to exorcising the boy out of his system later at the hotel.

Oliver felt confident in his plan of just keeping his eyes to himself, when he heard someone clear his throat near him. When he turned around, the boy was standing next to him, the headphones now in his hand.

The station and the fellow riders melted into a blur, and all Oliver saw were the green eyes when the boy looked up at him and asked: “Do you need help?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and for all your lovely comments! Next chapter soon; I have a pretty much complete draft of the whole story now and will keep posting along as I finalize each chapter.


	4. The Look

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Was Elio just being friendly, offering to help?

Elio could practically already see the look on his manager Chloe’s face when she would see him arrive at the Symphony Hall not ready and wearing his tuxedo, nor by the car she had booked for him. It would be her usual _you’re hopeless_ look, accompanied by a shrug and a shake of her head. Still, Elio held onto his decision to find his own way to his concert and had canceled the car. Technically, he could have walked to the Symphony Hall from his apartment; it might have even been faster than taking the two trains that he would now have to catch, but a walk was not what he needed.

Elio needed to get on the train, and to get off of it at the Symphony station, to return to the place where he had met the man on that fateful evening ten years ago.

During the entire afternoon at home, nothing had brought Elio clarity regarding what he should do about the meet-up at midnight, and this was his best bet. When he would get to the spot where the man had first laid his eyes on him, the universe would send him a sign, any sign, to let him know whether he should do it, or whether he would only be making a fool of himself if he tried to seize something that he had been longing for for ten years.

One look at the clock on the kitchen wall told Elio that he would soon have to hurry, but he realized that running through his last practices all afternoon, he had forgotten about eating. With no time left for an actual lunch, he saw a half-eaten lemon cake on the kitchen counter. Chloe had brought the cake earlier in the week, knowing it was Elio’s favorite and she was in fact the only one who knew where to find it: in some tiny Italian bakery on Prince Street. Elio would have kept her on his payroll even if that had been the only task she was responsible for.

Elio stuffed a piece of the cake in his mouth and picked up the morsels that had crumbled on the counter, licking them off his fingers before wrapping the remaining chunk of the cake carefully back into its parchment paper to save for later.

 

 

To avoid a lecture from Chloe regarding the state of his clothing, Elio stuffed his tuxedo suit and the freshly pressed shirt safely in a garment bag that he flung over his shoulder when he left his apartment. It was a nice and dry day, but still not terribly warm, so he had worn his polo neck sweater and black jeans outside instead.

Flynn had always commented on Elio looking European when he wore polo necks.

“Your American side completely disappears when you put that on.”

“I like the way it looks,” Elio had always said, smoothing the fabric over his neck.

“I would like wearing polo necks, too, if I had your neck.”

Sometimes Elio had rewarded the compliment with a kiss, sometimes he had thought of someone else, instead, who had also liked his neck.

 

 

Thankfully the crowds in both the first and the second train were sparse enough and the garment bag and the suit inside were able to remain in perfect shape in Elio’s lap.

Elio himself, instead, felt his pulse quickening the closer his train got to the Symphony Hall stop. He tried to prepare himself, certain that if he just got there, a sign would appear, telling him what to do.

He had of course already been there, at the same station, hundreds of times after that day that had changed everything, but those days had not diluted Elio’s memory. Certain details from that first meeting were burned in his mind.

 

 

It had been a rough day for all of the third-year students at the Boston Conservatory. They had had a rehearsal after rehearsal for the spring recitals and as if they hadn’t had enough on their plates with that, they had been given an extra essay to write by the end of the week. Elio had figured that since it was only Monday, he would have all week to do it, and therefore he hadn’t stayed at the study hall to start off the writing like his friends had.

“You’re going to write it on the last night before deadline, again, right?” Christian, Elio’s roommate of two years had asked when Elio had parted ways with him and their other friends in the yard.

Elio smiled and shrugged. “Why change something that works?”

“One day I’ll find out how you do it. Maybe you have a secret girlfriend somewhere who does all your schoolwork. The teachers all love you, maybe it’s one of them. My money is on Miss Yang.”

Christian was just teasing, as he knew how Elio did it. Elio tried not to make a big deal about it, but Christian was sure he read much more than all of their friends combined, even if they weren’t books that had anything to do with their curriculum. Still, based on years of listening to debates between his parents and the dinner guests they always had over, Elio’s knowledge was vast enough for whipping together a passable essay on a number of subjects with minimal research. And he fully used it to his advantage. Instead of schoolwork, he preferred using his time to play music – and to read some more.

“Very funny. I’m going now,” Elio announced to his friends, already half across the yard.

“Are you going to spend the day in your hideouts again?” Christian yelled after him.

“Something like that!”

Elio didn’t want to reveal the places he had learned to call his own in the city. That one cherry tree in the Public Garden that always bloomed first, the nook behind the last shelf of the biography section at the North End branch of the library. The places in a city the size of Boston were inevitably less solitary than the ones Elio had claimed for himself near their summer villa in Italy, but he had still managed to form relationships with them. Plant his roots. Feel like he belonged. But sharing them with his friends would have meant giving away something that was most deeply his, so Elio kept them to himself.

“I have the evening shift at the bookshop, so I won’t be back until late,” Christian managed to shout as the last thing before Elio disappeared out of their sight.

“Okay!” he waved at Christian without turning to look back.

 

 

How differently everything – everything – would have turned out, had Elio been a more disciplined student and joined the others in the study hall to work on his essay.

Instead, he had first gone to the Symphony Hall to pick up the sheet music he had forgotten there the previous week when his class had been there for their first on-site rehearsal. It had been an exciting day, getting to play at the renowned music hall for the first time, even if it was just for the rehearsal of the student recital. The burst of excitement had led to Elio forgetting his sheet music somewhere along the way, but he hoped that maybe the janitor or a cleaning lady would have found them over the weekend.

After the hopefully successful retrieval, he planned to go home, maybe to continue composing that one new piece now that his roommate was going to be out and he had their tiny student apartment all to himself.

 

 

Someone had indeed found Elio’s sheet music at the Symphony Hall, and thus he was able to rescue his folder at the lost and founds. After sending the unknown soul a silent thank you in his mind, Elio tucked the folder under his arm and put on the headphones for his Walkman. As soon as he pressed play, the familiar notes started flowing: he listened to the recording of the score he was supposed to play at the recital nonstop these days.

Elio could have easily been lost in his thoughts, not noticing any bystanders, but as he descended the stairs down to the Symphony Hall subway station, a man standing in front of the area map caught his eye. Tall and refined, looking like he was supposed to be carrying a briefcase even though he wasn’t. Instead, the man stood with his hands in his pockets, examining the subway lines on the map.

As Elio got closer, he noticed the man was even taller than he had seemed from the distance, even taller than Elio and he, after all, was used to towering over his shorter friends. The man politely stepped out of the way when the burst of people passed him by and as he did so, his eyes met Elio’s. The expression in them was kind but inscrutable, and the moment was over before it had really started.

 

 

On the platform Elio concentrated on listening to his tape, trying to play his way through a particularly tricky part in the piece in his mind, when he noticed someone moving in his peripheral vision.

It was the man that had been inspecting the map earlier up on the station, except now the man was clearly inspecting him. The man was standing there, a head taller than the others. Stealing looks in Elio’s direction, probably thinking Elio didn’t notice.

Elio tried to pay attention to the music still sounding in his ears, but he had already lost his place in the score and as an odd tingle of excitement went through him, the notes stopped making sense. Elio debated with himself whether he would look back, letting the man know he knew what he was doing.

Elio turned his head slightly, just enough to see the man quickly look away and there was strange satisfaction. Not just about having caught him but about being looked at. By him.

In the briefest of milliseconds when their eyes had met, Elio had seen blatant awe in the man’s gaze, and now he wanted the man to look at him like that again. But had his looking back scared the man’s eyes away? Elio desperately wanted to lure them back on him.  _Please look again, I promise I will pretend not to notice._

Yet, the man seemed now intent on inspecting the map at the platform, just like he had done up on the station. Maybe he was still lost. Maybe the intricacies of the subway system were more interesting to him than Elio.

Elio didn’t come from a family where you spoke to strangers, but that was what he now increasingly wanted to do. He contemplated for a moment and then decided it was practically his civil duty to live up to the reputation of Bostonians being friendly people. The man wouldn’t need to know he was half-Milanese.

Elio took off his headphones and weaved between the people standing on the platform to walk over to the man.

“Do you need help?”

 

 


	5. The Invite

At this close distance the man was much younger than his tweed jacket would have let on, but still clearly a good few years older than Elio.

After Elio had asked him if he needed any help, he explained calmly, yet color faintly rising up his clean-shaven neck, that he was just checking if he was on the right platform to get to the Financial District.

“Yes, this Green Line goes there direct,” Elio said.

“Yes, you see, I had come to that conclusion once already, but then ended up going the wrong way anyway, so I figured a double-check couldn’t hurt.”

“I’m going that way too, to the library. I can show you, just follow me.”

It wasn’t a complete lie; Elio could have been going that way. He often did go to the library after classes, and just because he hadn’t planned on it today didn’t mean he couldn’t decide on that right then and there.

“Oh, great, thanks.”

The man looked relieved, but the relief was mixed with something that Elio couldn’t quite identify. The inscrutable curtain had descended again and the awe he had seen earlier had gone into hiding.

The train started to arrive to the station at that moment and they crowded into one of the cars with the other rush-hour travelers. The man found a place to sit whereas Elio kept standing in the aisle, the side of his hip bumping against the side of a seat whenever the train rattled at a turn.

The man avoided looking at Elio, so much so that it seemed intentional. Instead, the man stared at his own hands or occasionally smiled at the baby in its mother’s arms on the seat across from him.

Elio wanted to ask the man why he was going to the Financial District, where he was coming from, why he had gotten lost, anything. Anything to get his attention and have the man’s eyes on him again, but there were too many people between them to start a conversation.

At the next stop, the family sitting across from the man left and Elio slipped into one of the vacant seats.

The man looked out the window even if it didn’t make much sense in the dark subway tunnels.

“I take it you’re from out of town?” Elio started. Casually.

“Yes. A New Yorker.” A quick glance at Elio, an attempt at a friendly smile.

“Ah.” Elio nodded.

“I’m here just for work, and I somehow lost my way. I don’t know how; I have lived here some years ago and did just fine earlier today when I was in Cambridge.”

“Oh.” The jacket he had on reminded Elio of one of his father’s, so he took a guess: “Harvard? MIT?”

“Yes, Harvard. A guest lecture.”

“Really? On what subject?”

“Greek philosophers, actually,” the man said smoothing the hem of his jacket between his fingers.

He clearly thought further details would not be necessary as they would only go over Elio’s head. How little did he know. Elio’s heart started to pound a little faster, but he tried to make his next words sound like an everyday question: “Pre-Socratic? Hellenistic?”

The man lifted his eyes, curious. Jackpot.

“Pre-Socratic,” he replied, slightly stunned.

“Demacritus, Pythagoras, Heraclitus maybe?”

“Heraclitus.” The man’s gaze got increasingly interested, so Elio felt a need to explain and grinned.

“My father is a Classics professor. I grew up on that stuff.”

He definitely had the man’s attention now.

“Does he teach here?” the man asked about Elio’s father.

“No, in Europe.” Elio didn’t necessarily want to talk to him about his father, but he would have gladly told him both of his parents’ life stories starting from the times of day they were born, if it would have kept the man in conversation with him. “He has American students as assistants sometimes, though.”

“I’ve heard about those types of residencies, some of my colleagues have done them.”

“You are a teacher, too?”

“Yes. At Columbia.”

Elio didn’t want to pry and wondered how much it was appropriate to ask a stranger on a train. He didn’t want the man to shun him if he accidentally crossed a line.

But after a pause, it was the man who started the conversation again.

“And you, do you study philosophy, too? Linguistics? Following in your father’s footsteps?”

Elio smiled. “No. But I have read many of his books. Can’t help it with the amount of them lying around the house, really. He sometimes lets me read his manuscripts too.”

“I’m trying to write my second one now. It’s hard.” The way the man said it was like a gift. Like he wanted to offer Elio something, a piece of personal information about himself that wouldn’t have been available to everyone in his introductory biography in the university brochures.

“Harder than a first book?”

“Yes. The expectations are higher. Not that my first one was that much of a success either, but a few people in my field did read it, or skimmed it at the very least,” the man said humbly. “So, producing the same quality of work again makes one look like one hasn’t evolved at all, while a better second book instantly makes the old one look pathetic in comparison.”

“And obviously, writing a weaker second one is–”

“–the worst-case scenario. Exactly.”

“That has to be stressful. But if you’re teaching at both Columbia and Harvard, your books cannot be anything but engaging.”

“Thanks. That’s very kind of you.”

Elio received a full, warm smile that reached the man’s eyes. Elio wanted the train to stop and him and the man and everyone in the train car to stay frozen in that moment for all eternity.

“I can’t even imagine what that is like. I’m procrastinating with an essay right now, and that’s only for a class.”

“That’s why you’re going to the library?”

“The library?” Elio was baffled.

“You said you were going this way too, to go to the library.”

Elio had forgotten the explanation that he had made up. He fiddled with the headphones in his lap and tried to stop the telling flush from rising on his face. “Yes, the essay. That’s why I’m going there.“

 

 

Elio left the man alone after their conversation, to give him a break, not wanting to appear too forward, not wanting him to start resenting the nosy boy from the train. He wanted to quit while he was ahead, to keep their encounter untainted, maybe embellish it later in his mind. When he would recount the story to himself later, the man would have smiled at Elio the whole time, maybe lightly touching his arm when he made a particularly funny joke. Elio would have been witty, and the man would have wanted to hear everything about him.

Elio was too deep in his thoughts, and only came back to the reality with the announcement from the loud speakers.

_“Next stop, Government Center.”_

The man gestured towards the doors. “Is this us?”

“Oh, yes.”

They both got up.

“Some guide you are,” the man teased. “I would’ve missed my stop again.”

“Ha.” He received a half-smirk from Elio in response.

 

 

Out on the street, the man nodded towards the Le Meridien hotel.

“That’s me. Thanks for the help and good luck with the essay.”

“You’re welcome. Do you need help with anything else? Places for dinner?”

“To be honest, yes, I’m quite hungry. Do you have any recommendations around here?”

Elio had already planned this conversation in his head ten minutes ago on the train but pretended to think. He wasn’t entirely sure, either, whether he would have the courage to actually say what he was about to.

“Umm, let me see… There’s a really good Italian place nearby. I was going to grab something there right now. If you want company?”

The suggestion was thrown in the air with a calculated nonchalance.

“Oh.”

“It’s nothing fancy, you probably haven’t heard of it, but it’s the best real Italian in Boston. Bar Stelle.”

“Is it far?”  

The man tried to buy time. Tried not to look too eager. Tried to talk himself out of it.

Unaware of any of that internal struggle, Elio replied: “Only two or three blocks from here.”

He adjusted the backpack on his shoulder, which made the collar of his jacket fall further open and let the swift spring wind breeze on his neck. The wind was already gaining strength; it probably forebode the promised rain.

Elio had to pull his collar back up.

Something shifted in the man’s eyes and he finally nodded: “Okay, sounds great.” He held out his hand for a handshake. “By the way, I’m Oliver.”

The man’s hand was warm and so big that it engulfed Elio’s slender hand entirely.

“Elio.”


	6. The Dinner

“Ciao, Elio! E chi é il tuo amico?”

“Hi. This is Oliver,” Elio introduced Oliver to the waitress who handed menus to the both of them. It was only one sheet, one side, and _Bar Stelle_ was written on the top of the page in big red letters.

The restaurant was half-empty, but the patrons who were there all seemed to be regulars, or that’s what Oliver assumed based on the friendly, casual atmosphere. The bartender greeted customers by name, and it looked like Elio wasn’t a stranger here either. They had been given a nice, quiet booth with chocolate leather seats, in a nook next to a staircase that led up to the second floor.

“Welcome to Bar Stelle, Oliver,” the waitress smiled at him, adding the crucial extra seconds to her smile for it to cross the line from friendly to slightly flirtatious. Oliver knew the look; was used to them. “Just let me know when you’re ready to order.”

“Okay, thanks,” Elio said on behalf of the both of them, but the waitress was already gone, long frizzy ponytail bouncing as she approached the next table.

“You come here often?” Oliver asked.

“Sometimes. Usually with my parents. The owners are family friends.”

“Your parents are Italian?”

“My mother. My dad’s American. I was born in Milan and my parents still live there.”

That made sense. “That explains your fluent Italian with the waitress.”

“Yes. I also speak French. A little German,” Elio said while perusing the menu. His statement sounded a little cocky even though his delivery was very matter-of-fact. Oliver wasn’t sure if he intended it that way, or if he was even aware of it.

“So how did you end up in Boston?”

“I go to the Conservatory, I’m a performance major. Classical piano.”

All of this, combined with the knowledge that he reads his father’s research books on classical antiquity, started to make Oliver feel that this really wasn’t one’s average college kid with a backpack and a Walkman.

“Really? That’s great. And what do you Conservatory students do here after classes?”

“I practice, or go to the library, the North End is my favorite. Go out with my roommates. I also translate music, do some composing. Read.”

 

 

When the waitress came back to bring them water and get their orders, Elio asked for his “usual”, whatever that was. Oliver went with the dish that the waitress recommended, and she seemed pleased with his decision as she wrote the orders in her tiny notepad before disappearing again.

“So, Oliver, how do you like Boston?” Elio asked, placing his heavy water glass back on the table after having taken a sip.

“I used to live in Cambridge for my undergrad. It’s nice to be back. I haven’t been able to come back much after that.”

“You attended Harvard?”

Oliver nodded.

“Were you in one of the rowing teams?”

“No.”

“In any other sports teams? Or were you just in your dorm room, reading about the Greek gods?”

Elio was clearly just teasing him and couldn’t have possibly known what had happened in the dorms, so Oliver let it go and replied in the same light-hearted tone. “Some of both. How do you think the Greek gods got that way? Not by reading, for sure.”

That amused Elio, made him throw his head back with laughter and it gave Oliver a perfect view of his smooth, pale neck, on perfect display now that the jacket had been taken off and he was only wearing a t-shirt. It had a black and white print of the band Talking Heads, and Oliver made a note to himself to ask Elio about it at some point. Right now, it was enough that it had a perfectly loose neckline that framed beautifully that neck and by extension, Elio’s delicate face.

But it wasn’t only Oliver whose eyes indulged in more than just their delicious food during the dinner. Oliver noticed Elio occasionally looking at his hands, his eyes grazing from his forearm to his wrist, over to his knuckles. After a while Oliver deduced that his wedding ring was perhaps the ultimate culprit.

Even if it was, Elio didn’t ask anything, and Oliver didn’t particularly want to bring it up. It didn’t seem relevant, why would it have? They were just two men, enjoying a nice chance encounter of strangers.

Besides, Oliver would rather think about the long lines of this kid’s arms when he stretched them over his head, that one curl of his hair that stubbornly fell over his eyes and that he just as stubbornly pushed back every time. Elio’s eyes were green, but the irises were dotted with irregular lighter flecks that lit up golden whenever he got excited about something, like when he read from the newspaper someone had left on their table that they were currently living in a year with the most Roman numeral digits out of the entire century.

Oliver found himself wanting to try and keep his eyes lit golden forever.

 

 

After the waitress brought them the dessert menus, Elio’s gaze had shifted beyond Oliver’s hands. Oliver looked at the list of pastries and gelato and pretended not to notice Elio’s eyes traveling on his face.

“Do you know what you’re having?” he finally asked, looking up from his menu, smiling.

Startled, Elio cleared his throat.

“Yes, the tartufo.”

Elio darted his eyes back to his menu, flustered but unable to keep himself from taking another look and Oliver hadn’t turned his eyes away.

Seeing the kid blush made a pleasant wave flush through him, but almost as soon as the wave of warmth came, came the harsh reality. What was he doing here, losing himself into the eyes of a college student? He had a wife and two kids at home, a four-hour train ride away.

Four hours.

If he could have Elio for four hours, oh, what he could do with him in that time.

Oliver could never, would never, actually do anything, but it didn’t stop him from fantasizing. Let these thoughts be my birthday present, he thought to himself.

 

 

Oliver ended up ordering the same dessert as Elio. Their tartufos arrived quickly, with an extra bowl of apricots on the side, with compliments from the owner.

“First of the season, just arrived from California,” the waitress said as she placed the bowl on the table. “Papà just opened the carton. He says he’s sorry he can’t come down, he’s caught up in clearing some sort of mix-up with the orders from Calabria. But he says hello. And he told me to tell your parents to come over soon, too.”

“Thanks, I will,” Elio said, already inspecting the apricots and choosing the ripest one.

Juice squeezed out of the fruit when he bit into it, dripping down his chin and Oliver had to fight the urge to reach over to wipe it off with his thumb. Or lick it off.

He forced his focus on his tartufo.

 

 

Oliver balanced between his desire to see Elio eat all of the apricots and his attempts to get his own rightful share of the delicious fruit. The bowl emptied fast, and they were entangled in a polite debate over who should get the last one, when the waitstaff all of a sudden burst into a raucious Italian song on the staircase next to them.

Oliver watched their waitress and three older, Italian-looking male waiters arrange themselves in succession on the steps and belt out lyrics that he did not understand, but the melody was catchy and cheerful, and they sang to the sparse audience with the same gusto as if the place had been packed full.

Elio watched his confusion, amused. “They are having a celebration later this evening, they do this every year. It’s this thing for Signor Stelle’s favorite actor’s birthday. And that’s a song from one of his movies.”

“Growing up, I only knew that Henry Fonda had his birthday today,” Oliver said.

He could deduce from Elio’s face that now his comment, in turn, required an explanation so even though he felt sheepish bringing it up, he admitted: “It’s my birthday today, too.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Happy birthday, then, Oliver.” A sweet smile took over Elio’s face, before he joked, delighted: “Do you want me to ask them to sing to you next?”

“Only if you are looking to get me to leave immediately.”

The delight in Elio’s eyes turned into worry with a thought that only seemed to occur to him then: “Did you have special plans for today? Did I thwart them?”

“Not really. I’m in town alone. My only plan was to see the exhibition at the Arthusian Gallery, the one mixing modern art and Greek mythology. I wanted to go there but it was closed.”

“At the Arthusian? My roommate works there part-time.”

“Oh, that’s nice.”

“No, what I mean is, I might be able to get the key from him.” The golden flecks were back. “He’s at another one of his jobs now, but he owes me, actually, for something.”

Oliver started to understand what Elio was getting at. “Do you mean it?”

“Yes. He works at a bookstore by the park on Mondays when the gallery is closed. After you’re finished with that,“ Elio gestured towards Oliver’s half-eaten tartufo that had already started to melt, “–we could go there.”

 _So now there’s an us,_ Oliver thought.

“That would be great. But wouldn’t your roommate get in trouble?”

“It’ll be fine. There’s no one there, at this hour anymore anyway. And it’s the least I can do. It’s your birthday, after all.”

“If you’re sure. It really would be great.”

“We just have to get there before the rain, they are forecasting a proper rainstorm for the evening.”

Oliver told him he had been trying to avoid the rain, too, and started dutifully scooping the last of the melted ice cream from the bottom of his bowl.

Elio watched him and suggested: “I could still ask those waiters to sing for you, too.”

He laughed softly, but Oliver’s eyes widened in horror at the thought.

“Please don’t. Or I swear I will…”

“Or you will what?” Elio’s laugh had tamed into a taunting smile, and it wasn’t a boyish provocation, or a challenge from a man to man. No, he was flirting.

 

 

When they left the restaurant, the waitress told Oliver she hoped he’d be back soon and lightly touched his arm when he passed her at the door.

Elio watched the two of them closely as Oliver promised that he would definitely be back and flashed her a big smile. Oliver’s smile seemed to steal the one on Elio’s face as he rushed out the door ahead of Oliver.

Elio didn’t realize Oliver’s smile had been one of the rehearsed ones that he could put on and take off just as quickly when it wasn’t needed anymore. Whereas the way his gaze skimmed Elio’s neck, shoulders, the short curls now bouncing against the nape of his neck as he was hurrying a few steps ahead of Oliver, was far from practiced. It was involuntary, something he tried to hide but couldn’t help but do.

Oliver had to take longer strides to keep up and when he finally caught up with Elio, the boy commented dryly: “You should have gotten her phone number. I’m sure she would’ve given it to you.”

“I’m married.” _There it was, said out loud._

“It doesn’t stop some people.”

“It stops me.”

“But if you weren’t, you would have, right?” Elio insisted.

Oliver didn’t know why Elio was so persistent. He was uninterested in the subject himself and thought it would pass quicker if he said: “Sure, why not.”

“Ha. I thought so.”

Oliver thought that Elio had gotten what he wanted, so the fact that Elio’s short laugh was still more of a bark of dissatisfaction prompted him to ask: “Why, are you jealous?”

Elio throat went dry and he had to swallow. “What? Me? I… Why?”

“I’m guessing you’ve known her for long. Maybe you didn’t appreciate a stranger coming between the two of you,” Oliver clarified.

Elio’s sulkiness dissolved into relieved laughter. “Oh. No. It’s not like that. At all. She actually used to babysit me when they lived in Italy.”

The smile returned to Elio’s face when they headed towards the park.


	7. The Mermaid

During the dinner, the air outside had turned into something that hung heavy and humid and one could almost smell the promised rain. Still, the Public Garden was in fragrant spring bloom, the cherry trees were just finishing up their season. It was an early Monday evening, so the park was less populated than during the weekends, and they had many of the walking paths to themselves.

Oliver had obviously been in the park before, but he couldn’t remember when the last time had been and regardless, everything now felt new with Elio.

The hyacinths were blossoming on the flower beds along with daffodils and they made Oliver think of Hyacinthus, the first man the Greek _Bibliotheca_ says to have been loved by another man.

He didn’t say it out loud. Instead, he asked Elio, pointing at the flowers: “Did you know that the term, hyacinthine hair, is used to describe a hair like yours; dark, curly?”

Elio’s hand rose instinctively to touch his hair. “My father told me that once.”

“Is there anything you don’t know?”

Elio reciprocated Oliver’s bump on his shoulder with a half-smirk that Oliver decided he liked just as much as Elio’s full smile. This version implicated Oliver in the joke, but still left things unsaid, inviting Oliver to figure them out.

As they kept walking, Elio pointed out to Oliver the cherry tree that was the quickest to come alive every spring and all the shortcuts he usually took to cross the park. He didn’t suggest that they take any of them now; quite the contrary. He seemed to want to prolong their time in the park to the extent that Oliver started to wonder.

“Are you sure you have time to be here? How about your essay?” Oliver asked.

Elio shook his head. “It’s not due until the end of the week. And there isn’t much other schoolwork either, since the recital is coming up.”

“Will you be performing?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have a recital every semester?”

“This is our first big recital on our own. Last year we had minor part in a Boston Ballet production, assisting the professional musicians. They performed some of the tales of Hans Christian Andersen.”

“Andersen,” Oliver hummed. “My wife has an old Andersen storybook. Little Mermaid, Ice Maiden. Kind of grim tales, she changes the endings when she reads to the kids. Do you know them?”

Elio noted the mention of kids, in plural even, but preferred to let it pass, uncommented. “Only Ice Maiden of those two was in the production, but yes, I’ve read them. My mother also read them to me, grim endings included. Did you know that many of the stories were inspired by Andersen’s life, even though they are fairytales?

“No, I didn’t.”

“Little Mermaid was based on Andersen’s despair when his childhood friend got married.”

“Oh.”

“Edvard Collin. Andersen was in hopelessly love with him, but his feelings were unrequited. When Edvard got married, Andersen didn’t go to the wedding but fled to an island instead. Hence, the story of a little mermaid who was in love, without a voice.”

“Feeling that she didn’t fit in,” Oliver added.

“And losing the prince to another.”

“Right.”

“The mermaid was doomed to die of a broken heart on the first morning after the prince gets married.” Elio ran his hand along a tree branch that hung low over their path. “Andersen sent the story to Edvard later.”

It sounded tragic, and Oliver wondered out loud: “Can you imagine loving someone so much that the thought of losing them would make you devastated enough to write something like that?”

“So, you and your wife… Sorry, I shouldn’t ask.” Elio shook his head, afraid of having been too forward.

Oliver shrugged, unoffended. “I guess reality is different from fairy tales. Less intense, less dramatic.”

“But despite losing love, the mermaid gets to aspire to immortality if she does 300 years of good deeds,” Elio reminded him.

“Immortality instead of love,” Oliver pondered.

“Andersen’s tales are still known, 150 years later. That’s one sort of immortality.”

“Through art.”

“Yes. I can only wish to compose a piece that would live beyond me,” Elio said wistfully. “Your books will.”

Oliver’s laugh was self-deprecating: “In the dusty libraries of Columbia.”

“Still.”

“Would you have immortality rather than love? Not that I know if you already have... Maybe you do. Sorry.”

It was Oliver’s turn to feel like an intruder. For some reason he had not once considered whether Elio was in a relationship with someone, a girl, a boy. He had seemed so free, detached, ready for taking, when they had encountered each other that the thought had not even crossed Oliver’s mind.

In the matter of the seconds that it now took for Elio to reply, Oliver ran through a thousand different scenarios in his head. Most of them ended with the conclusion that he had made a fool of himself for thinking there could have been anything beyond friendliness sparkling in Elio’s eyes; of course someone as smart, as talented, as beautiful as Elio had someone.

And then the lifting of the paralyzing grip of those thoughts when Elio admitted: “No, you’re right. I haven’t had my great love story yet.” He blushed, but turned his eyes towards the pond on the other side of their path, clearly hoping Oliver wouldn’t notice.

Oddly relieved, Oliver played along. He circled back to their original subject. “So, do you like Andersen’s tales?”

“Yes, very much.”

“I like them very much, too.”

Oliver suspected that it wasn’t really fairytales they were talking about, but this felt safer.

 

 

The bookstore where Elio’s roommate worked at was hidden in a courtyard on a street lining the Public Garden. Oliver would never have found it on his own.

“Is Christian here?” Elio asked the girl working at the front but simultaneously a nice-looking, red-haired young man appeared from behind the shelves.

“Elio, what are you doing here?”

“I was wondering if you could let me borrow your key to the Arthusian. We wanted to go see the exhibit.”

“But it’s closed on Mondays.”

“Yes. That’s what the key would be for.” Elio made a show of rolling his eyes. “Look, I promise we’ll be careful. My friend here is only in town for today.”

“Friend?”

That was Oliver’s cue.

“Hello, I’m Oliver,” he offered his hand and the red-haired boy shook it, his eyes flitting from Oliver to Elio and back to Oliver with an unreadable expression.

“I’m Christian. Nice to meet you.”

“Look, you don’t have to do this, I just mentioned it to Elio that I had been wanting to see it and he got this idea…”

“Yes, I know how he can get. Persistent, if he wants to be,” Christian nodded, laughing heartily. “It’s fine. Just give me a second.”

Elio had already ventured deeper into the shop, thumbing the backs of the books on the shelves while Oliver stayed at the front. The girl behind the cashier offered him a seat next to the counter to wait in. He thanked her and flashed her an awkward smile. She seemed disappointed when it didn’t take long for Christian to return.

Christian gave a small key to Elio and the boys exchanged a few words, too quietly for Oliver to hear until Elio raised his voice, annoyed, enough for it to carry to the front of the store.

“…not like that. But thanks for the key, I mean it.”

Christian only waved at them from the back.

“Nice meeting you, Oliver. Have fun. Enjoy Boston.”

 

 

“I’m a friend, now?” Oliver asked when they were back on the street.

Elio looked at the sky and reckoned it wouldn’t rain just yet; with the short distance to the gallery, they would be fine with walking.

“What would you have wanted me to say? This is a man I just met on the train and then had dinner with?” Elio’s words were harsh, but they were delivered with a gentle laugh.

Still, he seemed a little irritated after the bookstore visit and Oliver felt an inexplicable need to try and make him happy again, coax the sweet smiles out of him.

“Do you plan to go to Italy after the semester is over, in the summer?” His family and their homes in Italy had seemed like dear subjects to Elio, and now, too, the question lit up his face and thus, also Oliver’s.

“Yes, we always spend the summer at our villa there. Lots of people come over and visit. Aunts, cousins, friends, neighbors.”

“Sounds nice.”

“It is. But sometimes also exhausting, with the endless stream of people and conversation. And I like to spend time on my own, too. I have my places to read, uninterrupted. By a berm, away from the throngs of guests.”

“I’ve been to Rome once, but I’m sure it’s not quite the same.” Oliver thought he might enjoy more the seclusion of a small town that Elio described. He wondered if Elio’s reasons for it were the same as his; it was less lonely to be alone than in a company where you couldn’t truly be yourself.

“Have you been to Venice?” Elio asked.

“No. You?”

“A few times with my parents. We often go to the Biennale. On the first trip I read _Death in Venice_ which I had thought appropriate for the location, but I was much too young to understand it at that point.”

Oliver wondered if Elio brought it up on purpose, the novella of a man enchanted by a young boy, never doing anything about it, just observing from a far. A test.

“Do you understand it now?” he asked.

“I haven’t read it in a few years, but I would think so. How repressing your desires can leave you alone, and on the outside. Like Aschenbach was, only watching the others from his table in the dinner salon, or from his lounger at the beach.”

Oliver tried to sound casual, eyes seemingly fixed on the skyscrapers looming at the other end of the park. “It can be a defense mechanism. Or circumstances don’t allow one to express everything. Rationality and discipline have their rightful places sometime.”

“Does everything have to be rational? Where is the space for feeling things?”

“In between. The big strokes need discipline, feelings can be spared for the less important decisions.”

“Is that what you have done? Arranged your major life decisions with head and not heart?”

“I think so.”

“And has it made you happy?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you ever wish you would have followed your heart sometime?”

Oliver fell silent, thinking about how his marriage had come about by practical timing, how his decision to teach was guided by the need for a steady income, how there were things his heart would have wanted right then and there.

His silence prompted Elio to apologize. “Sorry, maybe I went too far.”

Oliver thought of a Camus quote. _Always go too far because that’s where you’ll find the truth_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Always go too far because that’s where you’ll find the truth._ – Albert Camus
> 
> For those who are interested, here’s some more background on some of the details:  
> *[A _New York Times_ review](https://www.nytimes.com/1987/05/24/arts/dance-view-retellings-of-tales-by-hans-christian-anderson.html) of the Boston Ballet production of Tales of H. C. Andersen in May 1987  
> *[H. C. Andersen’s original tale of _Little Mermaid_ ](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/32572/32572-h/32572-h.htm#Page_124) had a much grimmer mood and ending than for example the 1989 animated Disney version.  
> *[Edvard Collin wrote in his memoir](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Christian_Andersen) that he had not been able to reciprocate Andersen’s feelings for him.


	8. The Gallery

“Here you go.” Elio switched the lights on in the foyer of the Arthusian art gallery, and the three successive exhibition rooms lit up one after the other.

Oliver took off his tweed jacket, draped it on the vacant desk in the foyer. No one was there except for them.

Stepping into the first room, Oliver immediately saw the piece de résistance hanging from the ceiling: a massive installation of shiny spheres, all ranging in size from a golf ball to a giant balloon. The sign stated it was called _Bursting Rays of Helios_. The sign also described the myth behind the sun god Helios, but Oliver knew it without reading.

He also knew by now that commenting on Helios as the origin of Elio’s name would have been old news to the boy who passed him by, fleetingly touching his elbow.

“Come, let’s start from the back.”

“But this is the main piece,” Oliver said, standing under the artwork.

Elio had already disappeared out of sight and his voice carried from the next room.

“Don’t you want to build the anticipation first, Oliver?”

 

 

Oliver followed Elio through the rooms and doorways until he found him in the last room. Its walls were covered in sketches.

“These are the plans and blueprints for all the installations,” Elio waved around. “My roommate invited me to the opening, but I didn’t look at any of these then.”

Elio leaned in, the minute expressions on his face changing, eyes squinting, as he examined the graphite lines sketched on the papers. He looked up, delighted.

“Guess which myth this piece depicts, based on the materials listed here: _made of gold and bronze_.”

Oliver tried to think, shrugged, took a guess. “Glaucus’ and Diomedes’ gifts.”

“That was too easy. Let me try another.” He moved on to the next sketch. “Plexiglass.”

“Which means it would be reflective?” Oliver pondered.

Elio tilted his head, not wanting to give anything away. “Maybe.”

“Narcissus by the pond?”

Elio smiled. “Yes.”

They both liked their little game and it continued around the room, Elio reading the sketches and asking the questions, and Oliver getting every answer correct, until Elio came upon the last sketch by the doorway.

“Apples?”

“Ah, the apple of discord from Eris. Or rather, the subsequent Judgment of Paris.”

“No. There are three apples here. Whereas there were three goddesses fighting for Paris’ decision, but only one apple.”

“Then they are Hippomenes’ apples. To distract Atalanta in their footrace, obviously.”

“Correct.”

“You should have said three from the beginning.”

“I did say apples, in plural.”

 

 

In the next room, the sketches came to life in the actual artworks. Elio flitted around pointing out little details on the pieces that might have gone undetected by Oliver.

“That one is constructed from paint can lids.” And a couple of strides further: “This is the apple thing.” By the back wall he nodded in the direction of the hundreds of domino pieces made of crystal and arranged in succession: “That took them three days to install. I’m surprised it hasn’t fallen down yet.”

“I can see that you would like to try and push one piece,” Oliver grinned.

“Maybe,” Elio laughed. “Just a little. To see whether it would result in the chain reaction. Or whether they’ve glued the pieces to the base.”  

“We would have to stay here for the next three days to re-install it.”

The crystals were impressive, but Oliver found himself increasingly intrigued by his makeshift gallery guide instead. By Elio’s thoughtfully narrowing eyes when he looked at a piece, by the graceful twirls as he moved from artwork to artwork. By the profile that looked like it was drawn by Michelangelo himself.

Oliver was sure Michelangelo would have been mesmerized by this boy.

The room had one large, mirrored plexiglass-covered statue placed in the middle; Oliver thanked Narcissus as he found it perfect for keeping an eye on Elio’s reflection while feigning to be inspecting the piece.

He was disappointed when Elio led him from that room to the next.

 

 

“Would you like to spend a night at an art museum or at a library?” Elio asked as they started their tour of the last, main room.

“Would I be able to touch the art or read the books?”

Elio thought for a moment. “Yes. Both.”

“Then art museum. Because usually you can never touch the art, but you can read the books anytime.”

“That is such a practical answer. Wouldn’t you want to have a beautiful library all to yourself?”

“I go to libraries for books, not for the buildings.”

“I once saw a photograph of the Royal Portuguese Reading Room. It was like a cathedral, with books from the floor level to the high, high ceiling,” Elio said dreamily while Oliver moved on to the next work. He tilted his head trying to figure out what the intense, cobolt diagonal line was supposed to signify.

“You would like to go there?” he asked Elio.

“Yes. It’s in Rio de Janeiro. I don’t speak Portuguese, so I’m not sure how much I could actually read there. But I could lie on the floor, looking at the endless shelves. You know, while you yourself are walking around in an art museum somewhere, touching everything,” Elio smirked.

Oliver shrugged, defensive. “It’s been a thing since I was little. I always wanted to touch the artworks and was never allowed – obviously.”

“Is it just about that, then?”

“What?”

“The forbidden fruit.”

“You mean that if I was allowed to do it, I wouldn’t want it anymore?”

Elio was suddenly right next to Oliver. With a precise pivot he ended up in front of Oliver, head cocked a little to the side. Oliver’s pulse quickened.

“Want to try it?” Elio asked. “The thing you’re not supposed to do? To see how it feels?”

Oliver swallowed. Elio was much too close.

It was as though he had dared himself to look at Oliver without turning his gaze away, and it seemed to satisfy him to see how the blatant stare made Oliver uncomfortable. Not uncomfortable in a way that would have made Oliver move away but in the way that made him fight himself not to move closer. His heart was pounding.

“What are you talking about?” Oliver asked.

“It’s just us.” Elio gestured around in the empty, silent hall. “You’re not going to get in any trouble. You want me to take the first step?”

Oliver held his breath, not knowing what was going to happen, not being able to move.

Elio looked up at him with seemingly innocent eyes. “I know you want to.”

“I...”

“Okay fine, I’ll do it first. I’ll get the ladder.”

The ladder?

It wasn’t relief but disappointment that went through Oliver when Elio walked past him to the doorway and carried back a small ladder that he set up in the middle of the room, underneath the spherical  _Bursting Rays of Helios_ that hung high from the ceiling.

“Elio, no,” Oliver tried to stop him when he realized that Elio really planned to climb the ladder.

“Why not?” Elio stopped, one foot still on the ground, the other already on the first step of the ladder.

Oliver looked at the shining spheres descending from the ceiling and then at Elio.

“We’re not supposed to.”

“Who’s going to know?” Elio said and climbed further, looking up.

Oliver watched him assuredly climb to the top. “Just be careful.”

Elio turned to look at him. “I’m not going to–“

And in that very moment Elio missed a step and lost his balance.

”Elio!” Oliver exclaimed, and surged to catch him, reaching him just in time.

“Ahh!” Elio exhaled as he landed in Oliver’s arms bluntly but safely.

“Are you okay?” Oliver asked.

Elio’s arms had found their way around Oliver’s neck and he held Elio firmly by his waist. Elio was so slender that Oliver could easily reach all the way around him with each of his arms, effectively enclosing him entirely.

“I think so.”

Oliver let him slide down so that his feet touched the ground again, but neither of them let go.

“Are you sure?”

Elio let his hands drop from Oliver’s neck down to his chest and nodded slowly. His fingers curled slightly around the material of Oliver’s thin sweater.

Reluctant to unwrap his arms, Oliver swore that the kid would have to be the one to let go of him soon, or otherwise he would–

“I am. Sure.” Elio took a step back, letting go of the sweater.

“Okay, good.“ Oliver took a few steps back, too, to a safe distance again. “I told you we shouldn’t have done that.”

“We? You didn’t even do anything. And I wouldn’t have fallen if you hadn’t distracted me. But you can only blame yourself that you didn’t get to touch any artworks tonight,“ Elio said, carrying the ladder back to where he got it.

Oliver wanted to tell him that that was exactly what he had gotten to do.

“Should we get going?” Elio asked, now already in the doorway, one hand leaning on the door frame.

“I guess so. Thanks for bringing me here, I really appreciate it, but I think I have to let you get back to your own evening plans now.”

“Oh. Right. Okay.” Elio bit his lip and then turned around and started to put his jacket on.

 

 

When they reached the sidewalk, they could feel a stray raindrop or two on their faces and Elio looked up.

“I think the rain is finally starting, we’d better hurry to the train.”

He had barely gotten the words out before there was yet another drop, and then another and quickly they were caught in a legitimate shower.

They picked up their pace as the downpour escalated and were soon fully running across the sidewalks.

“Come, let’s cut through here,” Elio suggested as he swerved to a small side street. It was packed with cars stuck bumper to bumper, but the traffic was almost at standstill and they were on quick on their foot.

Elio tried to use his backpack as cover from the rain, but it was too heavy to carry over his head while running and he had to give up.

“Don’t you have an umbrella?” he yelled at Oliver over the traffic noises and car honks as they zig-zagged between the vehicles. “You look like a man who would carry an umbrella.”

“I planned to get back to the hotel before the rain,” Oliver shouted in response as he tried his best to keep up, trying to shield his face from the heaviest rain with his arms. “But someone convinced me we could easily walk to the gallery before it would start!”

 

 

In front of the subway station, a sign informed them that trains going east would not stop there and that travelers should walk to the next, Kenmore station, instead, to catch the train.

Elio cursed, still panting from their sprint, pushing back his hair that was thoroughly wet by now.

“Does that mean you?” Oliver asked pointing to the sign.

“Yes. They must have closed my platform here. So.” Elio looked at his feet, thumbs hooking underneath the soaking wet straps of his backpack.

Oliver shifted his weight from one foot to the other, not knowing what the etiquette was here. “So.”

“It was great meeting you, Oliver.”

“You too,” Oliver nodded. “Thanks for taking me to that Italian place. Would never have found it on my own.”

“Yeah.”

The raindrops splashed sharply on the pitch-black sidewalk. People hurried past them down the stairs that led to the station underground and Oliver was supposed to follow them.

Instead, he procrastinated. “Will you have to walk a long way in this weather?”

“Kenmore is a bit over a mile that way,” Elio tilted his head. “But it’s nothing I can’t handle.”

“I’m sure.”

Oliver looked at the boy and his eyes that seemed to be pleading for something, but when Oliver couldn’t think of anything else to say, Elio turned around and started walking away.

Oliver watched his shape get smaller and smaller as Elio approached the next street corner while Oliver himself was unable to move. He didn’t want to see Elio leave, but he wanted to look at him for as long as he could, not waste a single moment.

He wished he could look at Elio longer.

Maybe this didn’t have to be it, quite yet? What if he found a way to look at him for just a little longer? Oliver knew he would have wanted to do more than just look, but that would have to do.

He shouldn’t have seized the opportunity, but he did it anyway.

Just before Elio turned around the corner and out of sight, Oliver swiped his face clean from the raindrops and yelled:

“I mean, I know it’s in the wrong direction for you, but my hotel is only four stops away, if you want to come and wait until the rain is over?”

Elio stopped and turned around.

The rain was pouring down around and between them, but even from the distance, Oliver thought he saw a small smile spread on Elio’s face.

Elio walked – no, sprinted – back, the puddles splashing under his leaps, and Oliver waited, frozen in his spot until Elio was back in front of him, face tilted up, wet lashes blinking to keep the rain at bay. For a minute, Oliver’s world had felt lonelier than ever, but now everything fell into place again.

“Yes please,” Elio said and now Oliver could see the wide smile from up close.

He let out a little laugh.

“Then what are we waiting for, you goose, let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Don't touch the artworks, people.)


	9. The Shirt

“You can take this one,” Oliver said as he handed Elio a shirt from the closet in his room. The shirt was a nice, light blue Ralph Lauren and looked only lightly worn. Maybe he had had it on for his lecture earlier in the day, Elio thought, as he took it from Oliver.

When he started changing, Oliver turned the other way. Out of modesty, perhaps.

Elio’s t-shirt with the Talking Heads print on it was wet on the front and clung to Elio’s skin resisting coming off, but by the time Oliver looked again it was gone, and the light blue shirt was hanging from Elio’s shoulders like a tent, several sizes too big for him. He was struggling to button it up with the overly long sleeves in the way.

“I think you need to…” Oliver walked over to him and started rolling up the sleeves for him. He took one glance at Elio’s smooth, bare chest that was disappearing under the garment one button at a time, but then fixated his eyes firmly on his own fingers folding the fabric.

“There you go.”

“Thanks.” Elio pushed the rolled sleeves up for good measure before disappearing into the bathroom to hang the wet t-shirt to dry.

 

 

Oliver followed him into the bathroom after having changed into dry clothing himself. The shower rod already had Elio’s wind breaker decorating it, along with his t-shirt and Oliver’s tweed jacket that made the entire bathroom smell of wet wool.

Being in a private space with Elio was acutely different. Even on the busy subway, where they had had to settle for seats away from each other, the seemingly exclusive glimpses they had exchanged had felt harmless, friendly, because of the strangers populating the car all around them.

In the confined space of the bathroom, Elio’s sparkling eyes now seemed unsettling and the sopping wet, almost black hair daunting. If only because Oliver wanted to push it away from Elio’s face, especially the one long, uncontrollable curl that kept getting in his eye even when it was wet. Oliver was strangely aware that Elio would have let him, even welcomed it.

But none of this meant anything. Simply because Oliver couldn’t allow it to be anything.

Elio would stay until the heaviest rain would teeter off and then he would leave, be on his way. Oliver only needed to manage an hour or two.

 

 

Oliver reached down to the minibar and took out two mini bottles of something that looked like whiskey to Elio. He looked at them for a second and then said, determined:

“Just a second.”

Elio watched baffled as Oliver left the room, leaving the door ajar.

While Oliver was gone, Elio’s eyes took in the room. Oliver had not spread out any personal belongings, the room looked intact save for a briefcase on the desk. The bedspread looked immaculate. There was only one chair in the room, so if they didn’t want to stand, at least one of them would have to take the bed. Elio swallowed.

He looked outside, it was still raining. The drizzle on the window distorted the view of the city lights like a carnival mirror.

He didn’t know exactly what he had expected. Or what he was expecting now that they were here. He just knew that the opportunity to be near Oliver trounced all other options, and even though Oliver had only left a moment ago, this was already an eternity without him.

The ice machine rumbled far in the hallway, and then a minute later Oliver was back, holding a bucket of ice cubes.

“What kind of a bartender would I be if I didn’t have ice. Can I interest you in a night cap, to warm up?”

Without waiting for an answer, Oliver proceeded to fill two plastic cups he found in the bathroom with the ice as Elio watched. In the middle of pouring the whiskey over the ice he turned around and asked, worried: “You’re twenty-one at least, right?”

“What do I look like?”

“Barely twenty-one.”

“I’m twenty-two,” Elio huffed. “Just pour it, okay?”

They clinked their cups with an anticlimactic dull thud of the plastic and Elio asked: “And how old are you?”

“Twenty-eight. No, twenty-nine today.”

The strong drink burning his throat, Elio wished him happy birthday again now that they had something to toast with.

“In our family we don’t really celebrate birthdays,” Elio said. “And mine’s early in the year, so everyone’s quota of festivities is up by then anyway. We get birthday hugs, but that’s it.”

On the spur of the moment, without having time to weigh the rationality of the move, Elio reached up and wrapped his arms around Oliver’s neck, embracing him in a hug. One palm in the nape of Oliver’s neck, the other hand holding his drink, trying not to spill it all over Oliver’s back.

Elio smelled like rain and was featherlight against him and Oliver stilled at first, but then leaned into the touch, letting his palm follow the curve of Elio’s back before gently patting it and pulling away. He smiled as to apologize, and Elio retreated to sit on the edge of the bed to watch as Oliver downed the rest of his drink and headed for the minibar fridge for another visit. The first one had done little to calm his tension.

 

 

“What’s this?” Elio asked when Oliver took out new, fresh cups and fixed them new drinks that looked exactly the same as what they had just had. Or Oliver had had; Elio had trouble finishing even his first one.

“Bourbon.”

“Didn’t we just have it?”

“No, that was Johnnie Walker. Scotch. Big difference. But I can’t believe I’m trying to serve this without…”

Oliver went to his briefcase and found a slightly shrunken orange in it. He eyed it for a brief moment and then, using the sharp edge of a bottle opener, he sliced a thin swirl from the peel into both of their cups. He presented Elio’s cup to him proudly.

“So you said you’re also a bartender?” Elio grimaced when he took a sip. He tried to like it but couldn’t tell the difference to the previous drink and the orange peel definitely did nothing to mask the taste.

“No. But used to be. To pay my way through college after my father pulled his support.”

Oliver said it matter-of-factly, but his comment startled Elio nevertheless.

His gentle touch on Oliver’s shoulder was not a pass, but a gesture of compassion. Considering the close relationship he had always had with his own father, Elio couldn’t even start to imagine how it might have felt for Oliver to be shut off by his.

Oliver shrugged off Elio’s sympathy and flopped on the bed. “It’s fine, I became self-sufficient. Hey, you wouldn’t have playing cards with you, would you?”

“No. Why?”

“I would teach you how to play poker. It’s another thing that supplemented my income those days. I got pretty good at it.”

“What makes you think I don’t already know how to play?” Elio smiled and crossed his arms, brazen.

Oliver thought how Elio’s glittering eyes, the crinkles of his nose when he mulled over something, the twitches of his lips, would never allow him to have a face for poker.

“Well, do you?” he asked.

Elio had to admit that he didn’t. They did play card games during the endless summer afternoons at the villa, but canasta, gin rummy. Not poker.

“They must have a spare deck down at the hotel bar,” Oliver realized and his eyes lit up. “Or at the gift shop. Come.”

Elio had managed to finish his first drink and get a good start on the second, so his head began to feel beautifully warm and muffled as he followed behind the determined Oliver. He led Elio through the hallways and elevators, down to the first floor.

He left Elio waiting in the fancy but worn-down lobby while he headed for the bar himself. Elio sat down dutifully in the plush chairs and watched Oliver work his charms on the young woman swiping the bar counter with a cloth.

“What can I get you?” the woman’s voice was melodic, and the cloth disappeared as soon as she discovered the tall, handsome customer smiling at her.

Oliver leaned towards the young woman over the counter, speaking so quietly that Elio couldn’t hear him, but he watched their exchange closely. She laughed and flipped her hair and Elio wanted to walk over to make sure she knew Oliver wasn’t here alone. _He has company, I’m here, he’s mine._

Oliver returned with a well-worn pack of cards.

“Mission accomplished,” he declared with a winning smile and offered Elio his hand, yanking him from the depths of both the chair and jealousy.

 

 

Oliver tried his best to teach Elio the rules of Texas hold ’em, about the flops and the bets and the blinds. But the bourbon was already playing tricks on Elio’s cognitive skills and he hardly managed to pick up on any of the instructions as he sprawled on the bed, giggling his way through the rehearsal rounds instead. Oliver won every single one and tenderly called him hopeless.

He refused to take Elio’s money.

“I can’t take money from you, this was a rehearsal. Besides, you’re a student,” he laughed and grabbed Elio by the arm, stopping him from going to his backpack where his wallet was.

“You did back then, isn’t that what you said? That you played in college?”

“It was fine when I was a student myself. I’m a teacher now.”

“I’m good for it,” Elio insisted. “I don’t want to be a pity case. You won. Maybe I can give you something else instead. Pick your currency.” Pleasantly drunk, he was feeling generous.

“How about free tickets to your concert when you get famous?”

Elio rolled his eyes. “How boring.”

“What would you like to give me, then?” Oliver asked but didn’t look him in the eye and didn’t really want him to answer.

“A lot of things.” The end of Elio’s reply lingered.

Oliver started gathering the cards from the bed and Elio watched him stack the deck neatly back into its box. Thoughts were running in his mind and he tried to choose one.

“Why was it?” he then asked.

“What?”

“That your father didn’t pay for your studies anymore.”

Elio had thought Oliver might evade the question, and in that case, he wouldn’t have pressed the subject further. But to his surprise, Oliver replied.

“He found out what happened with my roommate Peter.”


	10. The Challenge

Oliver reached to pick up his drink from the side table.

“I think it was the Catholic guilt, or something, that made Peter tell his father, who then told mine.” Oliver’s knuckles tensed around the plastic cup. “The last thing my father did was buy me a place to stay, away from the dorms, told me to make sure it would never happen again. And that he would not support my lifestyle.”

“Lifestyle?”

Oliver’s minuscule shrug held the weight of a long-carried secret, the truth now gingerly reaching towards the light in a company where it just once might be welcomed, not shunned.

“It was one slip-up, hardly a lifestyle. And I met Annie, my wife, soon after, but he didn’t reverse his decision.” Oliver winced and swallowed what was left of his drink in one go. “I’ve never told anyone this. Everyone thought the money thing was because I had refused to join the family business.”

Elio sat up at the foot of the bed, crossed his legs. The value of Oliver’s confiding in him did not go unappreciated. Perhaps Oliver thought that it was safe to talk now since he was unlikely to ever see Elio again after tonight.

“Where’s your roommate now?”

“Junior year he came to the bar where I worked, and after he had had a few, told me that it had messed him up. That I had.” A reflection of regret still flashed in Oliver’s eyes. “For me it was just one drunken night at the end of the semester. But nothing good came of it.”

He rubbed his forehead. “Like I said, I don’t usually talk about this. No one knows.”

“Little Mermaid without a voice,” Elio said gently.

“I actually like Andersen’s Steadfast Tin Soldier more.”

“Makes sense.”

“What do you mean?”

Elio looked at him pointedly. “Staying proper, keeping going. Not acting on what one truly wants. Ring any bells? You know, Thomas Mann considered that story the symbol of his life, too, which is why it’s not surprising that the story of repressed Aschenbach was directly based on his own experiences. Everything that happened in the plot of Death of Venice happened to Mann. Being in Lido, the visiting troubadours, watching the boy.”

“Everything except the dying.”

“Everything except the dying. But like Aschenbach in the book, Mann might have gained both life and real love if only he were to speak.”

“So you’re suggesting that if Aschenbach had gone up to the boy in Lido, he would have…”

“Tadzio was a teen, so probably not literally, but symbolically, yes. Restrained, he ends up dying.”

“I thought he died of cholera,” Oliver said, getting up.

“It was a symbol.”

“How’s this for a symbol?” Oliver had raided the minibar again, now coming back with a two-ounce vodka and a brandy. “Which one do you want?”

 

 

While the third drink helped, it still didn’t do terribly much for Oliver. However, Elio was slighter in build and already in the soft state where he could only focus on one thing at a time, such as Oliver’s eyelashes or his clean-shaven jaw. They lay on the bed talking and had both long since forgotten to keep an eye on the weather outside, their world shrunken to those two-hundred square feet of the beige-carpeted room.

Elio lived for the rare occasion where Oliver wanted to pick something up from the nightstand on Elio’s side and he needed to lean over him in order to get there. Elio gathered the mounds of the big, borrowed shirt around himself more tightly and pretended to retreat further back on the bed to give Oliver more room to reach over, but in reality stayed in his way as much as he dared, admiring the broad of his shoulder, the nape of his neck in full display right in front of him.

Despite the warming alcohol, Elio still got an occasional shiver and Oliver asked whether he was cold.

“No. Or maybe my feet,” Elio said, rubbing his toes. His socks were still damp from the rain having seeped through his sneakers.

Oliver went to his duffel bag and scrunched up something, then exclaiming: ”Think fast!”

Elio barely caught the soft, balled item that turned out to be wool socks.

“My wife keeps putting those in my bag when I travel, regardless of the season,” Oliver shrugged as Elio unwrapped the ball and put the socks on his feet. They were as much oversized for him as the borrowed shirt was, and they both laughed as the socks could have almost housed two of Elio’s feet each.

Oliver laughed at the funny sight of the drooping socks but equally because of the happiness that filled him when he saw Elio getting covered in more and more of Oliver’s clothes, wrapping him inside, vicariously doing what Oliver himself couldn’t.

And Elio liked hearing Oliver laugh. The world spun around when that happened, and he particularly liked when he managed to be the one making that happen. For example, when his story about wealthy women buying vials of gladiator sweat back in the day amused Oliver immensely, even if it confused him in equal measure.

“Sweat? Why? As a souvenir?”

“To be used as facial cream.”

“You know the strangest things, Elio.”

“My father told me that story once.”

“But see, that’s what I should have done, instead of trying to scrape by tending bars,” Oliver commented.

Elio looked at him but didn’t understand.

“Oh, I was on the wrestling team at Harvard. Modern day gladiators. Plenty of sweat to be sold.”

“Really? You. On a wrestling team.” Elio perked up and his mind cluttered instantly with images of Oliver in a tight wrestling leotard. Sweat, muscles, groaning.

“I was quite good even.”

Elio was still incredulous. “You? Mister university professor in a tweed blazer?”

“What does my blazer have to do with it,” Oliver laughed, feigning to be offended.

“I’m just finding it hard to imagine. With real wrestling moves and all?”

“Of course.”

Elio’s eyes brightened: “Show me.”

“I’m not going to wrestle with you.”

“I bet you don’t remember anything anymore,” Elio taunted.

“Stop it.”

Elio poked him on his side; kept provoking until he got what he wanted.

“Okay, that’s it,” Oliver laughed and grabbed him by the wrists. Elio tried to fight back but succumbed easily and they ended up on the floor, Elio merely trying to kick underneath him because he didn’t know a single proper wrestling move.

Oliver’s grunts mixed with Elio’s delighted screams, and their chests were grinding against each other, Oliver’s face pressed in Elio’s neck while his arms struggled to get a better hold of Elio under his back.

Elio liked it, liked feeling the weight of Oliver’s body on top of him, the skin of his neck close enough for Elio to smell.

Then it all came to an abrupt stop when Oliver became fully aware of their physical proximity, and retreated, panting.

Elio was left on the floor leaning back on his forearms, his eyes following Oliver who had quickly gotten up.

”I’m not Tadzio. And we’re not in Venice. You’re not going to die of cholera if you touch me,” Elio said.

Oliver’s voice carried from the bathroom where he had gone, ostensibly to check on the drying state of their clothes but in reality, to hide the state of the accidental bulge in his pants. Or was it really accidental if he had been fighting it all evening?

“That’s not what I… And Aschenbach never touched him. That was the entire point of it.”

“And he died anyway, sick and alone.”

“What are we even talking about?”

“I don’t know, you tell me,” Elio said.

“Many are dying sick and alone as we speak. Especially because they went with their urges.” Oliver returned to the room and sat down on the floor next to Elio, forearms leaning on knees. “Last I heard about Peter, my roommate, was when someone said he was in a hospital on the West Coast.”

The stories about the ravaging, incomprehensible disease were in the news, but they hadn’t touched Elio’s family or friends personally, yet at least. They were lucky, and maybe Oliver felt that he had been undeservingly saved, that the lightning of fate could have just as likely stricken at him.

“I’m sorry to hear that. I’m happy you’re here,” Elio added and meant it on more than one level. He rested his palm on Oliver’s knee and Oliver didn’t move it away.


	11. The Request

They sat on the floor for a while, first with just Elio’s hand on Oliver’s knee. Oliver had tried all evening to keep him at an appropriate physical distance, knowing it would only lead himself to temptation if he let Elio too close, but after a while his attempts began to feel futile. They gravitated towards each other naturally; maybe it would be fine so long as no lines were crossed.

Emotionally, being with Elio was like being in a sanctuary where Oliver didn’t have to hide anything about who he was, so when Elio delicately moved closer, he let him. His boyish shape molded to Oliver’s side like it had been sculpted there, trusting, comforting. It made Oliver play with all the what-ifs.

What if he could stay here, what if he could keep Elio. It was crazy of course, impossible even, but it was nice to imagine. That he could actively pull Elio into his arms instead of just letting him nuzzle his temple against his shoulder like he now was doing.

But beyond his vast theoretical knowledge of the intricacies of the world, Elio seemed so innocent and good and yearning, and Oliver knew he could offer Elio nothing in return for the adoration. He was afraid that whatever little he would try, would only mess Elio up. It wouldn’t have been the first time he had done that to someone, even if the situation with Peter had been different.

“Why don’t we play something else,” he suggested, and got up to retrieve the playing cards. Grinning, he added: “Something where you can win, too.”

Elio watched him from the floor, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. He didn’t care about the card games.

“How was it?” Elio asked carefully, instead.

“What was?”

“With your roommate.”

Oliver stopped and smoothed the edge of the card box, the cardboard scuffed from numerous games at the hotel over the years. “Quick. Drunken.”

“I’ve never done anything. With a man. But I’ve had girlfriends, many.”

“Many, huh? Look who’s bragging,” Oliver smiled and teased, skipping over the thing that Elio had actually wanted to tell him.

Oliver found the subject too dangerous. To be locked away with the boy who kept finding reasons to hug, brush, nudge against him was already enough; the last thing Oliver needed was to get into a detailed conversation about what he had done, would have done, would now like to do.

 

 

Goosebumps kept running over Elio’s skin every once in a while, but he attributed them to the same cause that had made his heart beat faster all evening. To the man who would allow him to get close to him but only for a moment at a time, before he would find a reason to shift again. But then, despite the addition of Oliver’s warm socks on his feet, a proper flash of chill ran through Elio, making him shiver.

It prompted Oliver to check the temperature in the room.

“Sixty. I think there is something wrong with the heating.”

Oliver rummaged in the closet and then in the desk drawers, finally coming up with a manual.

“ _Troubleshooting. If your unit is not cooling or heating the room”,_ he started. “ _Setpoint limits may not allow the unit to heat or cool the room to the temperature desired.”_

Elio had climbed off the floor, hoping it would be warmer on the bed. He lay there on his back, upside down, head hanging over the foot of the bed and listened to Oliver read the instructions out loud, flipping the various switches on and off as he went. Elio closed his eyes and swam in Oliver’s words, no matter how mundane, now that he had a permission to only listen to his voice without a requirement to contribute to the conversation. _Check section on dipswitch settings._

The first flips of the switches did nothing to the equipment, but after a couple of more tries, Oliver had success. The temperature setting controllers started to co-operate, and the whirring noise slowly picked up again.

“I think that one did the trick.” Oliver closed the manual and planned to put it back to where he found it.

“Can you go on?” Elio asked.

Oliver was confused. “With what?”

“Reading the manual.”

“I already solved the issue.”

“I like to hear you read.”

Oliver’s confusion dispersed and converted into amusement. “You’re drunk.”

“Not that drunk. Please read. Just for a little longer,” Elio pleaded.

Oliver humored him and Elio closed his eyes again as Oliver stretched himself on the bed beside him and began: “ _If there is water dripping outside: if a drain kit has not been installed, condensation runoff during very hot and humid weather is normal.”_

Elio’s feet were next to Oliver’s pillow as he read to him and every few paragraphs Oliver would let himself rest his hand on Elio’s leg, reaching to rub his calf with his thumb.

At least this was a safe alternative to talking, where Oliver might have said too much.

Then Elio shifted to lean his cheek against Oliver’s upper thigh, his longest curls grazing near Oliver’s crotch whenever he moved to get more comfortable.

“What are you doing?” Oliver asked when he was running out of willpower to pretend that Elio’s mouth wasn’t so close to where it was. It was much too easy to start imagining things he shouldn’t have.

“Nothing,” Elio said, cheek still scrunched against the thigh, making his words into a barely understandable mumble.

“Will you come up here?” Oliver asked, a little testy.

I will do whatever you want me to do, Elio thought, as he sat up and stretched.

Like with kids and their bedtime stories, Oliver negotiated with him that he would finish the page he was in the middle of reading, but that would then have to be enough of the manual.

Elio listened to it with his chin prepped up on Oliver’s shoulder, eyes watching Oliver’s lips up close as they moved. His fingers rubbed Oliver’s back and Oliver caught himself considering reading one more page.

 

 

When Oliver was finally allowed to return the manual to the drawer, Elio followed him, loyal as a puppy.

Oliver slid the manual back under the Bible that the hotel had placed in the same drawer to provide comfort for weary travelers. To keep the lost souls from straying from the straight and narrow, Oliver thought. Was he, in fact, one of them? Would he have needed the extra reminder?

He wasn’t sure anymore. It might have been too late.

Oliver pushed the drawer close and sat back, perched on the desk. He clutched the edge of the desk with his hands to keep them from going elsewhere as Elio stood in front of him and pressed his hands on Oliver’s knees, leaning in with his entire weight.

“Oliver. The rain might be over now. And I could go home.”

“Yeah?”

“Do you want me to check?” he asked, pushed now his way to stand between Oliver’s thighs.

“Is that what you want to do?”

Elio’s gaze moved down to Oliver’s lips. “Not really.”

“What do you want to do?”

Elio slid his hands further up on Oliver’s thighs and his hyacinthine hair framed his features perfectly as he looked up at Oliver. His eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled.

“Kiss me,” Elio said, the end of his words going up like a question.

His eyes inviting, full of curiosity, and his lips slightly parted and right there.

Elio’s breath smelled of a mixture of all the liquors they had been drinking as Oliver leaned in.

Elio didn’t dare to blink as Oliver got yet another inch closer to him and then another, but when his next move would have inevitably landed his mouth on Elio’s lips, Oliver turned his head slightly to the side. “I can’t.”

Elio didn’t move, and Oliver’s lips brushed along his jaw instead.

Elio pressed his face onto the touch with a barely audible sigh. “Come on, I don’t have it. And it doesn’t catch from kissing. But I don’t even have it, I told you that haven’t ever been with anyone. A man, I mean.”

Oliver shook his head slowly. “That’s not it. I’m married.”

Elio stilled, pulled away. Oliver’s thighs were now cold where Elio’s palms had been.

“That’s not exactly news,” he said. “So what are you doing here with me?”

Oliver clutched the hem of Elio’s shirt, to stop him from leaving further. “It’s complicated.”

“Right,” Elio said, sarcastic, as he lowered his gaze.

“Everything I’ve said is true, still. I just also have a wife and two kids at home. Who are waiting for their dad to come home tomorrow to eat the birthday cake they’ve made,” he sighed, the reality seeping in now that he had given it the opening.

“And you want to go.”

“I also want to stay here with you.”  _Can’t I have both?_ “But I can’t always choose to do what I want.”

“So. It’s goodbye then?” Elio wrapped his arms tightly around himself and batted his lashes firmly enough to keep whatever was forming behind them at bay.

“Can’t we just stay here? For tonight? My train doesn’t leave until ten in the morning.”

“Stay here?”

Oliver let go of his hold on Elio’s shirt and walked past him, over to the bed. “Yes.”

Elio looked at him. Oliver wanted him to stay, even if he had no intention of giving Elio what he would have wanted.

The only option was to say no and leave. There were far too many hours left in the night, each of which would only mean falling further for him.

Still, as Elio looked at the man lying on the bed, hair dried askew and long legs sprawling towards him, he thought that giving a heart so willingly to destruction had never seemed more tempting.

Elio took a step and then another, finding that they did not lead him to the door but onto the now already rumpled hotel bedspread where Oliver’s hand reached out to him and pulled him close.

Oliver raised his arm to make room for Elio and he moved even closer, until his head was leaning on Oliver’s shoulder and his warm body molding against Oliver’s.

Oliver knew he was being selfish, keeping Elio here, but he had never met anyone like him before and he wanted to savor the boy, exist in his halo as long as he could. A part of Oliver already regretted not kissing him and yet, a kiss would not have been enough anyway, and any more than that was simply not possible. It only would have led them on a precarious road that would have been hard to come back from; one day Elio would understand that this was better. For the both of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for sticking with the boys and for all the thoughtful comments.
> 
> And I know it’s easy for me to say because I know what will (eventually) happen, but just hang in there <3 Please take another glance at the ‘Happy Ending’ tag if you need to. 
> 
> Next chapter next Thursday! Weekly updates from now on, because I’m also working on something else in parallel <3


	12. The Candle

_1998_

 

 

“It’s your turn, daddy!” Joshua cheered at the end of their birthday dinner, nodding towards the candle in front of Oliver.

So far, the dinner had been a success.

Oliver had chosen the restaurant based on his colleague’s recommendation, and yes, the food had been tasty, but the main draw of the evening had been the professional magicians that the place boasted as extra entertainment. They had circulated in the dining area, stopping by at tables, performing clever close-up magic tricks for the diners in between courses.

Not surprisingly, they had been a thorough hit with the boys, and to be honest, with Oliver and Annie, too. Oliver made a mental note to remember to thank his colleague on Monday.

Yet, the one thing the magicians’ spells hadn’t been able to make disappear were Oliver’s flashbacks from his night with Elio.

After seeing the storefront of Bar Stelle earlier in the day, little things had kept coming back to him all evening. Like the moment Oliver had stirred in the middle of the night only to find Elio’s fingers clutching Oliver’s forearm in his sleep. Or how in the morning he had woken up first, knowing he should have gotten out of bed because he had a train to catch, but reluctant to move because Elio’s limbs had been so comfortingly entangled with his.

Annie had asked Oliver more than once during their meal if something was wrong, and every time he had claimed to have been distracted by issues at work.

Finally, the meal had culminated in a birthday surprise: the waiters singing and bringing cupcakes with candles on them for the birthday boys.

Joshua was thrilled and had just blown out the twelve candles the waiters had managed to fit onto his giant cupcake, and Oliver now looked at the cupcake in front of himself with the lone green candle on top of it. It hardly could have accommodated thirty-nine candles, so one had had to do.

“Remember to make a wish, Oliver,” Annie reminded him.

Oliver closed his eyes and after a moment’s pause, blew out the flame.

“What did you wish for, dad?” Joshua asked.

“I can’t tell you, otherwise it won’t come true.”

Thankfully, Oliver’s stoic answer seemed to satisfy Joshua.

There was no way he was going to tell his son that what he had wished for, was a chance to somehow finally complete a kiss with a twenty-two-year old stranger he had met ten years ago _. A gorgeous stranger wearing the brand-new Ralph Lauren shirt your mother had gotten for me for the lecture._

Oliver had had to find an excuse for the shirt’s disappearance when it hadn’t been in his laundry when he had gotten back home from the trip.

He had murmured something about a dinner. Red wine. Narrow tables much too close to each other, someone had elbowed him.

Annie had scolded him for not having brought the ruined shirt home regardless. Maybe she still could have saved it, she knew all kinds of tricks with salt and club soda. Oliver had promised to do so next time, should the same accident ever happen again.

 

 

Back at the hotel, happy and well-fed, Ben and Joshua retreated to their room behind the connecting door, and Oliver remembered briefly the old days. The days when on trips like these, he and Annie would keep listening closely behind the door to make sure the kids were asleep and then lock the door. Just in case, so that the boys wouldn’t walk in on them by accident.

But that had been before.

Before the divorce.

Or, rather, before the single night Oliver slept at his office, followed by the long nights of him watching and Annie crying around the kitchen table, followed by telling the children, followed by Oliver moving out and finding an apartment on his own in the city, and finally the signing of papers after papers after papers. Before the divorce.

“Which bed did you want?” Oliver asked, ready to drop his bag on one of the hotel beds as soon as he would know which one would be his.

Annie took a cursory glance at each bed. “Can I have that one, the one closer to the window?”

“Sure. So Phil is fine with us sleeping in the same room?”

Annie sat down on the bed that was now hers. “Oliver. He knows we’re only doing this for the kids. I think he’s actually happy you and I can be civil around each other now. That I’m not constantly complaining to him about my ex-husband.”

“Well, Phil’s a good guy.“

It hadn’t taken long for Annie to start seeing a single dad of one of the kids in Ben’s school. Had Oliver not taken initiative with the separation himself, he might have suspected something had been going on between them even earlier than that, but he didn’t really have a point now. Or leverage to be casting any first stones, considering what he had done during their marriage himself.

Luckily Phil had turned out to be a nice, decent guy, if a little too into watching sports for Oliver’s taste. Oliver liked to run, but spending an afternoon by the television watching a game some other people were playing wasn’t his idea of a well-spent Sunday. Nevertheless, he had made an effort to do so with Phil, to try and bond with him since he was going to be around the kids and Oliver didn’t want his and Phil’s presence to be mutually exclusive for the boys.

“Do you think Phil wants to marry you at some point?” Oliver asked Annie conversationally as he loosened his tie and took off his jacket, starting to get ready for bed.

“Maybe,” Annie yawned, taking off her earrings and placing them on the nightstand. “It’s been two years and he’s not showing any signs of leaving, at least.”

“Did I?”

“Oliver.”

“You know it wasn’t about you, specifically.” Oliver lowered his voice to prevent their words from carrying to the boys’ room.

“I know. There was nothing wrong with me, except the fact that I didn’t have a penis.”

“None of it was your fault. It was my fault for ever thinking I could have done this.”

Their lines came easily, with a routine that had been acted out so many times that the highest charge of emotion had been strained away from them. All that was left was the facts.

“I’m glad you did, though. Really glad. We got some good stuff too,” Annie said and gestured to the adjoining room where their sons were supposedly sleeping but probably really playing video games in their beds.

Things were mostly fine now between Oliver and Annie. After the initial shock, and after Annie had had time to process it all, her warmth towards Oliver had slowly returned. It had brought comfort to him amongst the turmoil; after all, it had been the thing that had initially attracted him to her. Oliver had never understood people who claimed men sought out wives that resembled their mothers as Annie was the opposite to his.

But as grateful as Oliver was, he hadn’t fully rationalized to himself how he deserved that from her, still. How, after he had upturned all of their lives only because he had realized there was possibly a home for him somewhere on this planet and it just wasn’t in their house?

 

 

Oliver went to take a shower and let the water rush over him, hoping it would help in absolving him of his past sins that had raised their head now that he was in Boston again.

Even though he hadn’t kissed Elio, emotionally he had been gone the moment he had walked into that hotel room with him, maybe even earlier. He thought back to the seemingly innocent offer of help at the T station, the dinner that had already intertwined their budding desires together, the conversations, the touches.

By the time he had been standing in the rain watching Elio walk away, Annie had existed in some other realm and all his thoughts had been in the one with Elio in it.

Over the years, Oliver had kept thinking whether he should have kept better track of where Elio was. Whether he should have tried to contact him instead of holding on to a silly pact, waiting for it to expire. What if he would decide to go when the agreed time would be up, but it would be too late because Elio was already with someone?

There had been moments when he had physically ached for Elio, for the way he had of saying things, for the feeling of his weight on his chest, for the way Oliver had unashamedly liked himself in his presence. Yet, he had always come to the same conclusion. Maybe it had only felt special because nothing had ever happened beyond that night.

A few years after, Oliver had read somewhere that nostalgia and regret were the feelings that pierce your heart the strongest, simply because they long for the impossible things that never were. It had seemed to make sense. It still made sense. Right?

 

 

Oliver came out of the shower and relinquished the bathroom to Annie. Slipping under the covers, he pulled out his current read from his bag to keep him company while he waited for her to finish her nighttime routines in the bathroom. He had never found out what exactly happened in there and why she needed so many creams and potions, but she still seemed to take her time, just as she had when they had been married.

Oliver found the page where he had last left off in his book and tried to read, but after a while, he realized he had been looking at the same strings of words over and over again without making any progress. The words were gibberish to his brain that instead, kept returning the same outcome to his every train of thought: what if, what if, what if.

He glanced at the hotel room’s alarm clock radio for the time. It was 10:59, and while Oliver was looking at the numbers, the thin red fragments on the display blinked and rearranged themselves to 11:00.

He only had an hour left to decide.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that are absurd - The longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world’s existence. All these half-tones of the soul’s consciousness create in us a painful landscape, an eternal sunset of what we are._ \- Fernando Pessoa
> 
>  
> 
> Coming up next Thursday: We still haven’t seen them make the actual ten-year pact yet, so in the next chapter, we head back to 1988 one last time.


	13. The Pact

“This one is your dressing room, Mr Perlman.”

Elio thanked the Symphony Hall house manager and after she had given him a quick run-through of the evening’s schedule to come, she left Elio alone.

He hung his garment bag on the knob on the wall and zipped the bag open. Changing into the freshly pressed shirt and suit didn’t take long, but his hair was another story altogether. He tried to rake his curls back with hair gel, not wanting to tame them too much, just enough to keep them away from his eyes when he would play.

Elio tried to concentrate on the show ahead of him, but couldn’t help being a little frustrated: nothing had happened on his way over to the Symphony Hall that could have been considered a sign.

He still didn’t know what to do about the meeting at midnight.

Nothing at the T station had jumped out to him, it had been a standard early Saturday evening crowd of people returning from shopping or brunches that had run late, or employees of the Symphony Hall coming in for work for that evening’s concert.

As Elio kept smoothing the single insistent curl on his forehead that always gave him the most trouble, his mind kept drifting back to ten years earlier and how things had ended between them that night. Or rather, the next morning.

 

 

After Oliver had said that he couldn’t kiss Elio, and instead, had suggested that Elio would just sleep over at his hotel, Elio had tried to negotiate again. He had nestled himself against Oliver’s side, Oliver’s arm around him. His hand had wandered lower from Oliver’s chest and caught on the hem of his t-shirt. “Can I take this off?”

“Why,” Oliver had hummed.

“It’ll be warmer, skin to skin.”

“Are you still cold?”

“I could be.”

Oliver tried to suppress a smile but failed. He sat up, pulling his shirt off in one motion.

Before he could suggest that it would mean that Elio would need to do the same, his big, borrowed shirt was already unbuttoned and halfway down Elio’s arms.

Both of them now shirtless, Elio snuggled back against Oliver’s chest, reveling in its broadness and all the skin and hair now available to him. Everything was so different from the times he had been lying in bed with girls. The girls had been soft, with rounded edges, disappearing within his arms. Pressed against Oliver he felt safer, stronger. Grounded.

Elio rolled onto his back, stared at the ceiling. He laced his fingers with Oliver’s and brought them to his chest.

Oliver watched his profile and moved closer.

“I’m glad you stayed,” Oliver said, each word a warm puff of air on Elio’s neck.

It was stretched taut and Oliver couldn’t resist; he traced the tip of his index finger from Elio’s jawline down to his clavicle. The touch was like a trail of fire ants, burning in its wake and Elio felt the simple touch in his entire body.

Elio swallowed and stilled, then shifted his legs restlessly.

Oliver glanced towards the foot of the bed.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.” Elio shifted again but pulled his hand free from Oliver’s to adjust the waist of his jeans.

“You can’t be getting hard just from this,” Oliver asked, incredulous.

“I’m twenty-two. And you are my…”

Oliver kept caressing the milky skin with the side of his finger and asked gently: “Your what?”

“I mean, like I said, I’ve had girlfriends, but this is somehow very–” Elio had to pause to breathe. “Very different.”

“You do know that nothing will happen between us, right?”

“My brain does. To the rest of my body your presence seems to be enough.”

Oliver’s fingertip kept dotting Elio’s neck with invisible kisses and an involuntary groan escaped from Elio’s lips. He threw his arm over his face.

“Are you going to come in your pants?” Oliver asked, half-amused, half-proud of the effect he had on Elio.

Elio blushed furiously. “I hope not.”

Oliver took hold of his hand, pulling it away from his face and against his own better judgment, brought it over his own hardness that had grown in parallel to Elio’s struggle. “Don’t think I don’t want you, too.”

Elio swallowed. “Ahh, that’s not really helping.”

Wanting to break the tension before things would get embarrassing for him, Elio rolled over onto his stomach. Chin propped on Oliver’s forearm he asked: “Do you think this feels like this specifically because we know this has an expiry date?”

“Maybe. Probably.”

Oliver now traced the groove of Elio’s spine, following his fingers with his eyes.

The touch seemed innocent and safe enough, until it wasn’t. Oliver let his hand rest on Elio’s lower back, so close to his waist that he only would have needed to turn his palm a little bit, like the hands of a clock - from four to five, maybe to six - and his fingers would have easily taken a dip under the waistband of Elio’s jeans to feel the swell of his buttocks and the crease in between.

Oliver pulled his hand back, to safer waters. Elio was disappointed.

He sighed. “I didn't know life could be like this. That you could feel like this with someone. That– That you are you, but also in me.” Elio grazed Oliver’s shoulder with his cheek.

“Me neither. But these things aren’t real. I already have a real life that I can’t just–“ Oliver took Elio’s hand in his own again. “You, on the other hand, you’ll meet others. You’ll feel like this again. You're so young.” He kissed Elio’s fingertips gently.

Elio pulled his hand back and pressed his fingers against his lips before the feeling of Oliver’s mouth against them would fade. “What if I don’t?”

“You will.”

“What if I don’t?” he repeated. “I’ve never met anyone like you, Oliver.” He clutched Oliver’s hair and let out a little laugh. “I want to keep you.”

“It doesn't make any sense, Elio.”

“Does it have to make sense?”

“Feelings pass.”

“I don't think this will.”

“You'll meet someone else and you'll forget this night ever happened.”

“Will you? Forget this?”

For a moment Elio wondered if Oliver would lie, to protect him, to protect himself. It was clear Oliver had to fight to keep his voice steady when he admitted: "No. I won't."

“So you feel the same way?”

Oliver pressed Elio's head to his shoulder and sighed. "I’m afraid I do."

Elio was relieved. “So how come you think this will pass?”

“That's how life works. Things will pass. Both good things and bad things, everything. Whether you want it to or not.”

Elio got up, leaning on his arm. "Look, I know you think I'm just a kid, and compared to you I probably am, but I'm not a child. I know this is something that doesn’t come around every day. These feelings will not pass. I will not forget this, forget you, next week or next year or fuck, in ten years. Ever.”

Oliver relented, smiling at Elio’s persistence. “Okay, let's make a pact. If we still feel this way in ten years, then we'll meet up again.”

“But will you really?”

“Will I what?”

Oliver’s suggestion had started as a light-hearted deflection, but it now took a more serious turn.

“Meet me in ten years. In 1998.” The year sounded futuristic, unreal. It would almost be the turn of the millennium. Elio rarely thought things very far ahead, let alone that far. “On May sixteenth. At midnight.”

“Midnight? Where would we meet? At the same place where we met now?” Oliver asked.

Elio felt a glimmer of hope. Oliver was not shooting this idea down. He thought for a moment.

“Well, I’m not going to wait around at that T station at midnight. How about that Italian place where we ate tonight, Bar Stelle?”

Oliver hummed. “Okay.”

Then a flash of fear went through him. He wasn’t afraid of having to keep the promise; the kid would forget him in a week or two, in a few months at most, and would never show up. Oliver was more afraid that he would want to show up himself.

“If you’ll meet me anyway, then why can’t you stay now?” Elio asked.

Oliver pushed a curl away from his eyes. “You’re so young. You’re only starting out your life. There’s so much you haven’t experienced yet. You can’t possibly know that you want me.”

“I do want you. Now, and I will in ten years.”

Oliver wanted to kiss the sad look away from Elio’s eyes, but he knew he couldn’t.

“And after ten years, what happens then?” Elio continued.

Oliver didn’t know. He wasn’t sure if he knew anything anymore. Tonight, the heavens had peeked into his life like a slice of bright sunlight from between the clouds, but they had brought to him more questions than answers.

“At least I will still have tomorrow morning with you,” Elio said softly.

“Tomorrow is today,” Oliver said and those were the last words spoken that night.

They lay in silence, listening to each other’s breathing until they fell asleep.

 

 

Elio woke up alone in the bed. A cold dread shot through him – _had Oliver left, just like that?_ – until he heard the shower running in the bathroom. He moved over to Oliver’s side of the bed and buried his face into Oliver’s pillow, wrapped himself up in Oliver’s side of the duvet.

When Oliver got out of the shower, Elio had put on his light blue shirt again. He sat on the bed in the middle of the sheets, hugging the shirt that was still hanging open. It still smelled a little like Oliver’s cologne, refined. Nothing like what Elio and his friends smelled like when they went out at night.

“Can I keep this?”

“Will you give me your t-shirt, then?”

Elio refused. “That faded old thing? I would be like Diomedes, giving you just that when you give me a gold armor.”

“Fine,” Oliver laughed softly and moved to button up the shirt for Elio. “I guess it wouldn’t fit me anyway.”

 

 

It didn’t take Elio long to get all dressed up and ready to go. He had to hurry or he would miss his morning class. Yet, he hung by the door, trying to delay his departure.

“Could we go have breakfast somewhere? I can skip my first class.”

“I don’t think it’s such a good idea.”

“It’s just breakfast.”

“My train leaves soon, Elio, I would have to bring everything with me.”

“What everything? You have one bag.”

Oliver looked out the window.

“Oh.” Elio realized it wasn’t about breakfast. At night Oliver had wanted to keep him there, extend the evening when they still had hours and hours to go. Now, in the morning, when their time could be counted in minutes, it would just be delaying the inevitable.

He dropped his backpack on the floor and walked over to Oliver.

“Not good at goodbyes,” Oliver confessed. He didn’t want his last memory of Elio to be a moment in a diner, distorted into awkwardness by the presence of strangers.

Elio nudged Oliver’s shoulder with his forehead. “This is not a goodbye. Midnight, remember? May sixteenth, ten years from now.” When Oliver didn’t answer, Elio tilted his head to be able to properly look him in the eye. “The pact is still on, right?”

“Right. I just…” Oliver cupped Elio’s cheek.

“What?”

“I really do hope you’ll just forget me and go and live your life. But I’m also afraid that…” Oliver sighed, as if what he was about to say made no sense. “I’m also afraid that you’ll forget me and go and live your life.”

Elio leaned onto his palm. “I won’t forget. Will you?”

“I won’t.”

“It’s settled then. We’ll both be back. Okay?”

Oliver nodded and the look in his eyes made Elio feel Oliver was counting on him, the twenty-two-year old, to be the voice of reason here. But Elio couldn’t be that for him for long.

When Oliver pulled him close to his chest, the words came out small, muffled: “I don’t want to go.” Elio fought against his voice breaking, determined not to let the tears win. One escaped, and when he lifted his face, Oliver caught it with the pad of his thumb.

Oliver embraced him tightly one last time, kissed the top of his head and then let go of him.

“You’ll miss your class.”

Elio reached up and raked his fingers through Oliver’s hair before leaning in to press a goodbye kiss on his cheek and Oliver let him linger, cheek against cheek. Elio clung to him, fingers clutching the shirt on Oliver’s back and to console Elio in his quiet desperation, Oliver whispered a promise:

“Just go and grow up. And I’ll see you at midnight.”

 

 

Elio made it to the elevator, past the concierge in the lobby downstairs, and out onto the busy Franklin Street before the rest of the tears came.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I feel like this is a good spot to remind you about the “Reunions” and “Happy Ending” tags again. All will be well <3
> 
> My plan is to update weekly on Thursdays from now on, because I have now started also posting the [Kaleidoscope summer sequel](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19341967/chapters/46013005) I have worked on in parallel. Feel free to check it out if you are interested; the first chapter is already up.


	14. The Phone Call

_1998_

 

 

The tail end of the final applause echoing from the music hall, Elio walked briskly towards his dressing room, the technicians giving him thumbs up signs as he passed them by. Once in the room, he closed the door behind him and still in his tuxedo, slumped on the modest couch that looked like it had been there since the original days of the Symphony Hall. Finally, some peace and quiet. Or at least quiet.

The peace of mind was relative, because as soon as the rush of having performed dissolved, his thoughts immediately returned to the question that had occupied his brain all day.

He was happy that Chloe had agreed to throw the official celebratory dinner only after the second show on Monday; Elio would not have been at his best to receive any congratulating guests tonight. The concert had gone well, and he could not have been happier about that, but it had only been the first hurdle to get through tonight.

The midnight moment was still looming ahead.

He glanced at the clock on the wall: it was eleven, which meant that he had an hour to decide what to do.

Chugging water from the bottle Chloe had brought over at intermission, Elio calculated that it also meant that it was five in the morning in Milan.

He picked up the phone anyway. Maybe his father would already be up: sometimes the research questions woke him at night and wouldn’t let up until he got out of bed and wrote something down.

When Samuel Perlman answered the phone at the other end, far across the Atlantic Ocean, the exhilaration in his voice came through already in his first word.

“Elio?”

“Yes, dad, how did you know it was me?”

“Your concert! I was hoping you would call.”

“Ah, yes. It was great. Can’t wait for you and mom to get here. Or to New York, I mean.”

“Yes, only two weeks! We are already booked at The Peninsula.”

Elio was incredulous. “The Peninsula? Really?”

“Come on, we are the parents of the star. We can’t stay just anywhere. Besides, we can walk to Carnegie from there.”

Elio shook his head. “Still. Even I won’t be staying at The Peninsula.”

“Where are you staying, then?”

“I... I don’t know, actually. Chloe takes care of those things. I’m sure it’s not The Peninsula, though. I’m not making that kind of money yet. But the concert was not why I called.”

“Oh. Can I ask why, then?”

Elio grabbed the phone from the table, cords and all, and tested how far he could take it in the cramped dressing room. Good, the cord reached all the way to the couch.

Elio laid down on the modest two-seater, the receiver on one ear and the phone propped upon his chest. His legs extended well over the arm rest at the other end, but he made do.

“Elio, are you still there?”

“I’m here. I’m just getting more comfortable.” Elio shifted to get his neck in a better position and then asked: “Do you believe in fate, dad?”

“Hmm. No, I don’t really. Why are you asking such a question at this hour?”

“I have been wondering whether I should do things even though no signs point to them. Whether I would be tempting fate if I do them nevertheless.”

“What kind of things?”

Elio closed his eyes. “Just things,” he said evasively.

“I think I need a little bit more than that to work with, son,” Samuel said gently.

”Fine. Remember I told you about that man I met my junior year, from Columbia? The one I made that ten-year pact with.”

“The one who called your hair hyacinthine. Yes.”

“How do you remember that? It has been years since I told you about him.”

Elio’s father shrugged in Milan, sitting down next to the phone in their hallway. “One doesn’t hear about young men like that very often. And what’s more, you don’t talk about people that way very often. But what brings you to think about him tonight?” Then it dawned on him. “Oh. Are the ten years up?”

“Yes,” Elio admitted. “And I don’t know if I should go.”

“Isn’t it simple? Do you want to see him again or not?”

Elio closed his eyes again. He had been able to see Oliver when he closed his eyes, for weeks after, for months, until the image had started to fade. Then he had started to forget how Oliver’s voice had sounded like, which had somehow felt even worse.

“Yes. I do.”

“Then why wouldn’t you go?”

“I don’t think he’ll show up, dad. And then I’m there alone, pathetic.”

“But what if he does?” Samuel said, voice full of the optimism that Elio didn’t seem to have.

“I’ve been trying to look for signs that that’s what’s supposed to happen, but there was nothing out of the ordinary at the T station where we first met, and nothing happened at the concert either, even though I played the piece I composed for him.”

“Oh, Elio. I’m afraid it sounds like you do need to go and find out.”

Elio was getting frustrated; his father’s advice wasn’t matching with his own logic. “Then why isn’t the universe giving me a sign?”

“Aren’t you giving yourself enough signs?”

His son didn’t understand, so Samuel had to explain further. “Elio, it isn’t a coincidence that you are in Boston tonight. Your agent told me she had suggested beginning the tour on the West Coast, but you had insisted starting from Boston.”

“It’s home turf, dad. I thought it would be the most appropriate to start here.”

“And it would also ensure that you would be in town on this day, right? It’s okay Elio, I’m not judging you. Only saying that maybe you don’t need to look for signs outside yourself.”

_“Darling, what is it? Is something wrong?”_ Elio heard the voice of his mother interjecting in the background.

“No, it’s just Elio! The concert has gone well!” His father was now yelling so loudly that Elio had to hold the phone receiver further from his ear in order to keep his hearing intact.

_“Oh, that’s wonderful. Tell him I will call him tomorrow.”_ His mother’s voice faded away again.

“She went back to bed,” Elio’s father explained after a pause, his voice returning back to normal. “It’s just past five in the morning here. I will go to speak from the study so that we won’t bother her. Hold on.”

There was rustling and clicking on the line and then Elio’s father picked up the phone again and cleared his throat.

“Okay. I’m here now. I do think you are giving yourself enough signs. Or does this have something to do with Flynn? Is the box gone?”

“The box is not gone. I think it’s my fault that it’s still in my apartment. After we broke up at that party, I’ve been informed that it’s too difficult to come over, even to pick up the stuff.” Elio rubbed his face. “In my opinion we weren’t that serious but apparently that’s not what… And I swear it wasn’t my intention to lead anyone on. Dad, Flynn always accused me of not being able to commit. Not being able to care about anyone else but myself.”

“I do think you cared.”

“But not enough. Maybe I should have tried harder but, dad, I can’t make myself care more than I do.”

Elio’s words were infused with not only frustration but sadness, and Samuel shuffled to find a better position for his back in the leather chair in his study. “I will tell you one thing. You never called me at five in the morning to talk about Flynn.”

“Yeah?”

“And you two knew each other for what, a year, two years?”

“So?”

“And tonight, after the first concert of your big tour, you’re not out celebrating with your friends, or even your manager, but instead, you are calling to your old father about a man you spent less than 24 hours with a decade ago. No one can accuse you of not being able to care, Elio. You just have to notice the things you do care about.”

“But I’m scared, dad.”

That may have been the first real thing Elio had said and Samuel, too, seemed to understand that they were getting closer to the truth. His voice became gentler.

“Good. It tells you that this matters to you. It’s scary to think about losing the things you care about. The people you care about. What is his name? You never told me that.”

“Oliver.”

“Oliver. Hmm. This Oliver could be thinking the same things you are right now. Whether to make himself vulnerable for rejection, if he goes there and you aren’t there. It is scary, putting yourself out there. Especially with someone who you value.”

“But it can’t be that there would only be one person who could make me happy. That is too risky. What if I mess it up?”

“Ah, so you are even more scared of him showing up.”

Elio got up from the couch, carrying the phone as he paced around the small dressing room. “What if I’ve made him up in my head? And he’s not at all who I thought he was. People change. I’ve changed.”

“Not fundamentally.”

“What if he doesn’t like me anymore? What if he shows up, and won’t–” Elio stopped, not wanting to finish the thought.

“You will have to let him be the judge of that.”

Elio shook his head. “I don’t know if I can take it. I’ve kept telling myself that there is that feeling out in the world. That I just have to catch it. I told myself that after Andrew, after Mia, and now Flynn… But this, this thing with Oliver, it was my only proof that it does exist. What if that disappears too?”

Sensing that Elio was starting to back out, Samuel took one more try at encouraging his son. “Remember Elio, in the end we only regret the chances we didn’t take.”

There was a long silence at the other end of the line, until Samuel heard his son’s quiet resolution:

“Dad, I think I’ve made up my mind.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _In the end we only regret the chances we didn’t take._ – Lewis Carroll
> 
> Elio is a smart young man and will make the right choice ❤️ And next Thursday, it’s finally midnight.


	15. The Decision

The red digits of the alarm clock radio glowed in the dark; 11:18.

Oliver couldn’t sleep.

During the years that had followed meeting Elio, the ten-year pact had always been there as an option dangling in the future, available for choosing if Oliver so decided. He was on a different path now than he had been back then; his actions closer to the person who truly lived inside his skin, mind, and heart. Yet, his life still didn’t feel fully tangible either. Not the way it had felt with Elio, when his every sense was heightened and even the during their devastating goodbye, he had been crushingly alive.

The option had always been there, even if Oliver hadn’t ever been serious about using it. But if he didn’t go tonight, for better or worse, that option would be off the table for good.

Oliver stared at the ceiling in the dark, Annie’s breathing already steady from her bed on the other side of the room.

Maybe he would just go for a walk. To clear his head, since sleep seemed impossible right now anyway.

Oliver slipped carefully out of his bed, trying to be quiet but the bed springs made a noise. Annie rustled under her covers, but it didn’t look like she had woken up.

Oliver grabbed the white shirt he had worn to dinner and sneaked into the bathroom to get dressed. Buttoning up the shirt, he glanced at himself under the fluorescent light of the bathroom and sighed at the reflection looking back at him.

The lines in the corners of his eyes notwithstanding, the years had been kind to him, maybe. Things like that were hard to assess for oneself. Perhaps he wouldn’t have passed for a 20-something anymore, but he certainly didn’t look older than his thirty-nine years. His hair was so short nowadays that it, thankfully, looked always at least half-decent. His restless tossing and turning in the bed earlier had once again awakened the little cowlick on his temple, but there wasn’t much to be done to that anyway and Oliver left it as is.

He shut down the bathroom light behind him as he got back to the room and picked up his jacket from the hanger.

It wasn’t like he was dressing up for anyone, Oliver told himself. It was going to be cold out.

He checked that he had his wallet in the breast pocket of the jacket, picked up the room key from the table, and was about to turn the door handle as silently as he could, when a voice, raspy from sleep asked behind him:

“Are you going to go see him?”

Oliver turned around. Annie was looking at him from her bed, eyes half-open.

“I…I’m going for a walk, I can’t sleep.”

“Is it because of him?” she repeated. “You know you can tell me. It’s not like you would be cheating on me anymore.”

Oliver felt a numbing wave of cold sweat pass through him.

“Him? What do you mean?”

“That kid.”

“You remember that?”

Oliver had told Annie about having met someone that he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about, and about the unusual circumstances under which everything had happened. The conversation had taken place after they had already decided on their separation, on one of the nights with two wine bottles worth of reminiscing and figuring out how they had ended up where they now were.

“Of course I remember. I assumed that was why you picked Boston for this trip.”

Oliver’s shoulders slumped and he let go of the door handle, returning to the room. He sat on his bed, facing Annie.

“Not on purpose, I think. But I guess I wanted to keep the option open.”

“And now?”

“Well, I am fully dressed here and wide awake, instead of happily fast asleep. But I still don’t know. He was a college kid, why would he remember this?”

“He might. You didn’t tell me much, but he didn’t sound like a regular college kid.”

“Even if he does remember, what guarantees he wants to show up anymore?”

“Nothing. But maybe you don’t go for him. Maybe you go for you. To do something for yourself, for once. What do you got to lose?”

“How are you so wise?”

“That’s why you married me,” Annie yawned.

Oliver acknowledged her attempt of a joke with a nod. “Right. I guess, in theory, I could go. Just pop in. If he’s not there, I’ll be back before you know it.”

“And if he is?”

An involuntary smile spread on Oliver’s face just thinking about the possibility, and he tried to hide it by biting on his lip, but after twenty years, Annie knew him too well.

“And that, that feeling you’re feeling right now, is why you divorced me,” Annie smiled back at him before she got serious again. “Look, I want you to be happy. That’s what the kids want too. Do you want to know what Joshua wished for tonight when he blew out the candle?”

“How do _you_ know that? Aren’t you supposed to keep those secret or they don’t come true?”

Annie shrugged. “He’s a child. That’s what children do, Oliver. They can’t keep birthday secrets.”

“So what did he hope for?”

“That we all would be happy. _Dad too_ , he said.” Annie’s eyes were gentle but laced with sadness. “The kids see it too, Oliver, even if they don’t know exactly what it is.”

Oliver rubbed his eyes. It was on the top of his list of major concerns; the thought of what his sons would think. What could he even tell them?

Annie got up, turned the night light on and put on her robe. This seemed to require a longer discussion than she had originally thought.

“Oliver, don’t you think things happen for a reason?”

“Not really. Things happen at random, and you adjust to them. Over time, the random occurrences seem to carry meaning, but it’s only because you’ve attached meaning to them yourself. Nothing’s predestined on its own.”

“So how about me finding out I was pregnant with Ben just before you submitted the application for the summer residence in Italy? We were on the verge of breaking up. Can you imagine how different our lives could be, if you hadn’t stayed? If in the summer of 1983, you’d gone off to Italy instead of us getting married and having Ben?”

“Then we would have lived with those choices. We would have nothing to regret because we wouldn’t have known about an alternative.”

“But now you do. You already know what you might possibly have with him. Or, miss out on, if you don’t go.”

Oliver realized he had talked himself into a corner.

“What’s his name?” Annie asked gently. “You never told me that.”

Saying it out loud would make it real, Oliver thought. Not just a figment of his imagination, not just a memory that might very well have been distorted by time.

“Elio.”

 

 

“Could you get me a cab, please?”

“Of course, sir.”

Oliver tried not to think what the hotel doorman likely thought of him. He must have seen him come in with Annie and the boys, his beautiful family, and here he was, getting into a cab alone at midnight, going who knows where.

“Thank you.”

Oliver slipped a five-dollar bill to the doorman and got into the black cab.

“To downtown, please. To Bar Stelle, on State Street.”

 

 

Already from the outside, the bar looked different than it had looked earlier that afternoon. The lights were on, a stream of people was going in and out of the door.

Inside, Oliver was instantly hit with loud music and a raucous atmosphere. The cozy Italian family bar was no more, the booths had been replaced with cocktail tables and there was a sweaty, cramped dancefloor in the corner.

The average patron now was almost twenty years Oliver’s junior, and he briefly wondered if it had been like that back then, too, and it was he himself who had changed? No, he and Elio had been perfectly capable of carrying a conversation whereas now you probably needed someone to directly shout into your ear to hear anything.

Oliver made his way to the bar to order a drink. He tried to innocuously search the crowd while he waited, but the eager 20-somethings kept pushing him from all directions as they tried to get the bartender’s attention and there was no sight of Elio anywhere.

After finally getting his bourbon on the rocks, Oliver walked around, scouting for tall, skinny, dark-haired young men. There were several, but none with the right kind of half-smile, none with the disheveled curls. Everyone was packed like sardines, and it was difficult to see further than a few people ahead.

It was already ten minutes past midnight and the unease of reality started slithering in. Had Elio really not shown up?

Then a thought came to Oliver and he laughed at himself. Of course. Why hadn’t he thought of it earlier?

They had sat at the booth next to the staircase back then.

Oliver pushed through the crowd and looked for the staircase leading up to the second floor in the back. It was still there.

Just like most of the booths in the front area were gone to make for a bar rather than a dining area, in the nook next to the staircase there was no leather-covered booth to be found anymore but just a small ledge on the wall. On the ledge there was a drink – a vodka orange, Oliver took a guess – and long slender fingers wrapped around the sturdy cocktail glass.

Happiness crept over Oliver as he got closer and closer, weaving between the people standing in his way, and finally he saw the rest of the person to whom the fingers belonged.

A head of messy, wavy curls. Oliver couldn’t see the golden flecks in his eyes from this distance, but he knew they were there.

A shy, but relieved smile spread on Elio’s face when he looked up and noticed Oliver standing in front of him and the familiar half-smirk made Oliver feel like he had just woken up from a long, long sleep.

Maybe Elio had known that they wouldn’t be able to hear each other in the noise, maybe he had not been sure what to say. Either way, he picked up a slightly wrinkled cocktail napkin from the table. It had been written on and Elio now held it up for Oliver to see.

_HAPPY BIRTHDAY._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, now we finally get to the chapters where they interact again! I can’t wait to keep sharing; most of my favorite bits are yet to come. 
> 
> Next week’s update will be an exception and will most likely be posted later on in the week than Thursday because of my vacations and sporadic internet access. (My replies to any comments may be similarly delayed over the upcoming week or so, but I will get back to all of them sooner or later!)
> 
> But in the meantime, you can picture them in a paused state from the scene that this chapter ends on: standing in the middle of that crowded bar seeing nothing but each other, time standing still, all noises and faces around them fading into a blur…until we come and press play again late next week.


	16. The Reunion

Elio had thought that the getting there was the hard part. No, what came after was the hard part.

Now that Oliver was right there, in front of him in flesh and blood and that smile warming Elio’s veins, he wasn’t sure anymore what to do. What was the etiquette for ten-year pacts?

Elio extended his hand for shaking, but Oliver ignored it, engulfing him within his arms instead. They held Elio close and his cheek fit in the nook of Oliver’s neck, skin warm and lightly scratchy from his short stubble.

The hug was long but still over much too soon for Elio’s liking.

“This is insane.” Oliver spoke into his ear from very close, but still had to raise his voice because of the noise from all the other Saturday night revelers in the bar.

“It is,” Elio agreed.

“I’m glad you came.”

Oliver looked relieved, Elio thought; maybe he had had the same fears of coming here, feeling foolish if Elio wouldn’t have shown up. Elio didn’t feel foolish now, but a sudden bout of shyness came over him.

Even in the sweaty crowd of the bar, or maybe especially there, Oliver was still gorgeous, after all these years. If he had suspected that his imagination had added an extra gloss to all his memories of how Oliver had looked like, there was no such suspicion anymore.

“I almost didn’t come,” Elio confessed.

“What changed your mind?”

“I wanted proof that you existed.” Elio looked at Oliver’s white dress shirt and his jacket and touched the edge of his cuff. “Were you at a party?”

“No, just a birthday dinner earlier. And you, are you coming from somewhere?” Oliver pointed at the garment bag folded next to Elio.

Bashful, but with an undercurrent of pride, Elio told him about the concert and the tour.

Oliver was thoroughly impressed, and Elio basked in his congratulations like in a bath of brightest July sunlight. Elio tried to explain that the shows weren’t sold-out, and audiences were fickle, and he was nowhere close to being a success story yet, but none of it dimmed Oliver’s pride in him. His sincere support reminded Elio of his parents’ earnest joy.

“I see you’re still a bourbon drinker,” Elio grinned and pointed to Oliver’s glass by way of changing the subject. “I never learned to like it, no matter how much you tried to teach me that night.”

“I wasn’t trying to teach you,” Oliver maintained. “It was all they had available and we were cold.”

“I do remember getting warmer.”

Elio’s words hung in the air between them and the velvety look in Oliver’s eyes confirmed that he knew that Elio wasn’t talking only about the drinks.

Elio took a sip from his glass. “Do you still live in New York?”

“Yes, still New York. Still Columbia.”

“I’m still in Boston, too.”

The small talk was just choreography while they danced around the crucial questions, and Elio wondered how long they would keep doing it, how long it would take for either of them to open the gate for the things they both truly wanted to know.

He decided to be the first one to stop playing coy. Their souls had been bare on the night that they met, and he wasn’t about to start hiding now.

“You know, you were wrong,” Elio admitted.

“Wrong about what?” Oliver tensed up.

“I haven't. Met others to feel like that with. You told me I would. I haven't. And it's not been because of my lack of trying,” Elio let out a sarcastic laugh.

His confession was met with a deep exhale from Oliver. He set his drink on the table and said:

“This is… I did think that I might be too late. And not just tonight, you know?”

With Oliver’s relief so visible, Elio’s heart started to hope. He had noticed Oliver’s wedding ring was missing, but Elio hadn’t wanted to get ahead of himself. Even back then, Oliver had been married and still spent the night sleeping next to Elio, so the absence of the ring now didn’t necessarily mean anything in the other direction.

Heart pounding, Elio asked: “Your birthday dinner, was it with your family?”

“Yes.”

Elio’s face froze. He should have known. He felt numb and all the fears from earlier in the day came rushing back. He shouldn’t have done this, shouldn’t have thought that it meant anything that Oliver had come. Would this be the same thing, all over again?

Oliver noticed Elio’s shock and hastened to blurt out: “With my two sons. And my ex-wife. We’re not married anymore. She’s seeing someone else already, this is just a trip for the kids.”

Elio bit his lip. So quickly from one extreme to another.

A wave of new possibilities now washed over him and he smiled. “Yeah, that’s… Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “And where are they now?”

“At the hotel. Sleeping, I hope.”

Oliver knew to expect the next question.

“Does she know you’re here?”

Oliver nodded. At some point he would tell Elio that, in fact, Annie had encouraged him to come, but this wasn’t the time yet. “I had to tell her about you when we were separating. No, not had to, but wanted to. To explain.”

“You didn’t separate because of me, did you?”

“No. Not you in particular. But because I knew that I wanted to be someone else than who I was with her.”

“Who did you want to be?”

The answer would have been the simplest of all, but instead of replying, Oliver picked up the napkin from the table. “Can I keep this?”

He folded the napkin neatly into his pocket without waiting for a permission, but Elio barely noticed as he kept getting lost in Oliver’s eyes whenever they looked his way.

Oliver looked different, even more beautiful than Elio had remembered, if possible. Older and wiser, and the laugh lines around his eyes made Elio happy; maybe his accumulated wisdom hadn’t all come through hardship.

His hair was short, and the clean-shaven look he had had last time – for his lecture, Elio assumed – had now given way to the short, off-the-clock stubble. Elio’s cheek had already had a taste of it, and he wondered if it would feel deliciously scratchy also elsewhere.

Considering the circumstances, it had still been comparably easy for them to hear each other if they just huddled close, until a large, loud group now settled at the tables right next to them.

“Was this place like this last time,” Oliver asked, laughing awkwardly.

Elio smiled. “Um, would you want to...” he gestured towards the door.

“Go somewhere else? Sure. It’d be easier to…”

“Talk?” Elio asked, both of them knowing fully well that talking would be only the first parameter in the equation.

“Yes. Talk. Somewhere more quiet.”

“Well, I don’t live with roommates anymore. In case you would like to come over?”

“That would do.”

“I mean, your hotel’s not really an option now, huh?” Elio grinned as he picked up his garment bag. “Would be my turn to host anyway. Come, let’s get a cab.”

 

 

The backseat of the cab was warm, reminiscent of the previous passengers that had just left the seat. Elio didn’t like it, the reminders of others. He wanted a clean slate. He remembered Flynn’s box waiting in the hallway and hoped that Oliver wouldn’t mind. Or that he would believe Elio about it meaning nothing.

Maybe Elio still should have gotten rid of it before Oliver, one way or another. Why hadn’t he? Had he not actually believed Oliver would show up? Or even if he did, had he expected Oliver not to come to his place? That the night would end before that would become a question, or that they might go somewhere else, perhaps back to Oliver’s hotel? As the cab drove them down the nightly streets and avenues, Elio realized he hadn’t really planned this as well as he should have.

He shifted in his seat and his knuckles accidentally brushed against Oliver’s hand resting in the middle of the backseat. He hadn’t meant to do it, but now that the touch had been there, Elio would have wanted to slip his entire hand under Oliver’s palm. Yet, the driver could have easily seen them, so he pulled his hand away. But Oliver’s fingers chased after it, trapping it, loosely wrapping around Elio’s little finger and ring finger.

They remained like that for the rest of the journey, not talking much, looking out of their respective windows, fingers linked in the darkness of the backseat.

 

 

“This is me. Fourth floor.”

Elio gestured up and climbed the stairs to open the front door to the building. Before following him, Oliver took a look at the windows on the upper floor: lights were off in all of them. Everyone was asleep or enjoying things one does in the dark.

Elio led the way as they walked through the hallways, the carpeting making their steps silent in the night. Usually when he had brought someone home from a bar, he had hardly waited until they were in his apartment; their mouths had been on each other by apartment 2A at the latest.

Now Elio walked steadily past 2A, 2B, 2C, and 2D and two more floors without so much as taking Oliver’s hand. He made a concession by letting Oliver stand right behind him when he was putting his key in the lock, maybe fumbling with it deliberately a little too long.

Warm, cedar. Oliver’s chest was brushing against his shoulder. He smelled different here, inside, away from the smell of the bar and without the wind outside blowing his scent away.

 

 

Once inside the apartment, Elio hung his garment bag on the hook on the wall and kicked off his shoes.

“Right, you were raised in Europe,” Oliver smiled and followed suit, arranging his loafers next to Elio’s miscellaneous collection of shoes in the hallway.

The apartment was small, so there wasn’t much of a tour to be given.

“So that was my kitchen, and that’s the bathroom,” Elio waved accordingly at each doorway as they passed them on their way to his living room.

Elio walked directly over to his stereo system and browsed the CDs he found on top of it as well as on the tables, simultaneously trying to stack them all neatly out of the way.

They were both still feeling hot from the crowded bar, and from the corner of his eye Elio saw Oliver take off his jacket and nonchalantly roll up the sleeves of his shirt while he let his eyes travel on Elio’s bookshelf, on his piano, on the paintings on his walls. Elio wondered what Oliver would think of his collections.

He chose classical music to put on the stereo, but it wasn’t any of his own recordings. He didn’t want the first time Oliver would hear him play to come from a recording. Elio wanted to play for him himself. Maybe he would get to, later.

“And that room there?” Oliver motioned in the direction of the half-open door at the other end of the apartment.

“Back there? That’s my bedroom.”

Their eyes met momentarily, and then Elio pressed play.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are back to regular programming, so next week's chapter will continue where this left off and will be up on Thursday again :)


	17. The Time

Oliver remembered the adoring, touch-starved Elio from ten years ago, and had expected to meet that same kid, maybe just less baby-faced.

But there was an added aura of assured, paced confidence to Elio now which, to Oliver, was thrilling in an entirely new way. Elio had been bold and brave before, but also desperate for affection, maybe because he had known that their time together was slipping through their fingers. Now, he didn’t seem to be in a hurry.

With clinking sounds carrying from Elio’s tinkering in the kitchen, Oliver wandered into the bathroom. He wasn’t usually the snooping type, but he inspected the knick-knacks on the counter, smelling the colognes. The Yves Saint Laurent one smelled like Elio; he must have been wearing it tonight. The other bottle, some kind of oil, didn’t seem to be Elio’s style at all. Then again, he didn’t really know this older Elio. Maybe this Elio had days when he wanted to smell like – Oliver smelled it again – patchouli.

Elio showed up at the door, amused at Oliver who was smelling the two bottles.

“This one somehow doesn’t smell like you.”

Elio took a look at the bottle Oliver showed him. “It’s because it’s not mine.”

He took the patchouli oil bottle from Oliver and placed it in the cardboard box on the floor.

Seeing the question in Oliver’s eyes, Elio said: “It’s over. It’s been over for a while. I didn’t expect a picking up of a box to be so difficult for someone. But I think it was less painful for me, the break-up. So maybe that’s why I don’t get what the problem is.”

“I would be heartbroken, too, to have been left by you,” Oliver let slip.

“My dad says a heart isn’t broken when it’s in pain. It just means it’s working.” Elio paused, tilted his head. “Why do you think I did the leaving?”

“Because you said it affected you less.”

Elio shrugged. “Things were just fine for me. Maybe I still would have kept it going.”

“Would you have? And was ‘just fine’ enough for you? Based on the little that I know about you, you have the capacity to feel pretty strongly.”

“It’s because around you I do.”

Oliver managed to catch a hint of a blush before Elio disappeared into the kitchen again, without giving him a chance to ask him to elaborate. Oliver decided to let it go. For now.

 

 

He found Elio by the kitchen counter. He watched him arrange thin slices of what looked like sponge cake on a small plate and thought how Elio had claimed that he hadn’t found with anyone else what he had had with Oliver.

But obviously, he had still had important people in his life, Oliver noted with a tinge of jealousy. Phantoms whose belongings were still in his apartment.

“And did you and…” Oliver motioned at the box in the hallway.

“Flynn.”

“Flynn. Did you and Flynn live together?”

“Not really. But my place was bigger, so we were mostly here. Enough so that things kept being left behind. Enough to fill that box.”

Elio took out a wine bottle and pursed his lips looking at the etiquette. “I hope you’ll like this.”

“Don’t tell me it’s a ten-year vintage of some sort,” Oliver teased.

Elio huffed. “My dad calls me sentimental but come on. That would be a bit much.” Then added with an amused snort as he started opening the bottle: “I bet you would get along with my dad.”

The cork came off with a hollow pop and he filled two glasses, handing Oliver the first one.

“Do you like it? It’s a Barolo.”

Oliver savored the taste. He had to admit the wine tasted exceptionally good. “It’s very nice.”

Seeing how closely Elio was watching him made him think whether this was a test. A screening procedure to signify something, to see if the glass slipper would fit. “Do you serve this to everyone?”

“No, why?”

“Did Flynn like this?”

Elio tilted his head, eyes narrowing. “You’re not jealous, are you? You are the one who’s been married this whole time.”

“Not the whole time. Not for the past three years.”

“Still.”

“Not jealous. Just asking.” Slightly sullen, Oliver tried not to be bothered by the phantom who had spent nights after nights here, with Elio, in this kitchen, in that bedroom that hadn’t even been shown to Oliver. He took another sip.

“Right,” Elio smiled. _The gentleman doth protest too much,_ his eyes seemed to suggest. “Well, it’s just a good wine. I get it from Italy.”

Elio ran his palm lightly over Oliver’s back as he passed him by in the narrow kitchen to put back a knife he had used for the cake. A peace offering, an acknowledgment that it was him who was here now, no one else.

Oliver accepted it gratefully, and they were friends again.

He took a cake slice from the plate Elio offered and hoped that with yet another gulp of the wine, it would help dispel the phantom.

 

 

Oliver placed his already half-empty wine glass on the coffee table in the living room and took a peek out the window. It was dark outside save for the uneven flicker of the street lamp nearing the end of its lifespan underneath Elio’s window.

Oliver didn’t notice Elio watching him in the doorway until he heard tapping. Elio ran his fingertips along the doorframe, his eyes inspecting the worn wood in their wake.

“I don’t know why I’m this nervous. I feel like I’m still twenty-two.” One side of Elio’s mouth curved into a self-deprecating smile. He didn’t seem to know what to do with his mouth after that; Oliver watched him wet his pink lips as his eyes left the doorframe and fixated on Oliver.

Oliver said nothing, stood with his hands stuffed in his pockets, Elio’s gaze traveling on the stretches of bare forearms showing between Oliver’s wrists and his rolled-up sleeves.

Oliver smiled as Elio walked over to him in slow strides and draped himself over him for a tentative full body hug that lingered, still slightly clumsy.

Oliver hooked his arms around Elio’s tiny waist. He could cocoon him just as easily now as when he had been twenty-two.

“If it helps, I’ve never done this before, either,” Oliver said while Elio’s hands traced along the muscles on his back through his shirt.

“Met someone after a ten-year pact? Gone home with someone from a bar on a family vacation? Had a man slip his hands under your shirt like this?” With that, Elio pulled out the hem of Oliver’s shirt from the back of his pants, sliding his hands to the warmth of the skin underneath.

Oliver pressed him against his chest. “D, all of the above.”

Elio breathed him in. At this close distance, the warm cedar mixed with fabric softener.

He dragged his fingertips back and forth across the dip of Oliver’s lower back. “Why does this feel more intimate than touching skin that’s readily available? Like if you weren’t wearing this shirt at all?”

“Why are you wearing this?” Oliver’s finger pulled on Elio’s high polo neck, a hint of frustration in his voice.

Elio hummed, pleased. “You did like my neck.”

He was right; it had been, and still was, milky smooth, the most enticing part of him that Oliver had let himself have access to back then.

Elio tilted his head generously, let Oliver slide his fingers under the collar and graze along the column of his throat with a thumb for a moment, before he released his hold of Oliver and pulled away, but only a step.

Oliver let his hand rest on the window sill and Elio slid his own underneath it. It was safe there, between Oliver’s warm palm and the smooth, cool stone. Oliver’s thumb caressed Elio’s wrist, fiddled with the edge of his watch.

“Nice watch.”

“Thanks. I got it from my parents when I turned thirty. An adult’s watch. No ratty straps.”

“Does it make you feel like an adult?” Oliver asked.

“No. But it does make me feel older. Like time would now run faster than I can keep up with. My old one had trouble keeping correct time and I liked to feel sometimes that time had stopped.”

“You know what makes time stretch? Paying attention. Not just breezing through, mind elsewhere, but noticing every detail.”

Elio watched his lips as he asked: “Like what?”

“Like noticing that one poor mistaken yellow leaf among the green ones,” Oliver nodded to the tree branches outside Elio’s window, intermittently lit by the trembling street lamp. “Or the way that that music is incrementally fading away.”

They both waited for last notes of the current track to play out from the CD that Elio had put on and for the next track to start.

“Or, the way you have rolled your sleeves unevenly. This one,” Elio traced the skin at the edge of the rolled-up sleeve of Oliver’s shirt with a finger, “– rolled higher and baring more skin than the other.”

Oliver touched Elio’s hair by his temple. “Or this section here that curls in the opposite direction than the rest of your hair on this side.”

Elio slid his hands along the skin of Oliver’s forearms, then up his upper arms, all the way up to his neck until he slipped them under the collar of Oliver’s shirt, fingertips curling at the nape of his neck. His thumbs slowly smoothed Oliver’s jawline on both sides.

Oliver studied the freckles on Elio’s top lip. He wanted to touch them with the tip of his tongue, and Elio seemed to read his mind.

“I don’t want to kiss you just yet,” Elio said, pensively now thumbing Oliver’s bottom lip. “I mean, I do, but don’t you think that often the anticipation is more satisfying that the thing itself?”

Right now, Oliver couldn’t have agreed less, but he laughed softly at Elio and his logic.

Elio continued: “And since we are both here, I’m assuming that it will happen tonight. Unless you…” Elio looked embarrassed and turned away. “Or maybe that’s just me. Maybe you don’t want to.”

“Hey,” Oliver caught him by his shoulder. “I do.”

A shy smile of relief spread over Elio’s face, but he didn’t still look up and pulled away to walk over to the couch. “Good.”

Oliver had inadvertently seized the power between them, but he wanted to give it back. He liked Elio taking the lead.

“But aren’t you afraid it’s not going to be as good as you think, after all the wait?” he asked and sat down too, but in the armchair, far away enough from Elio that any touching would now have to be deliberate.

“I’ve made up different scenarios. Have you thought about it at all? Of course you have,” Elio added, almost to himself, as if it was silly to think otherwise.

“What were your scenarios?”

“There was one where you couldn’t wait one single second, and as soon as we were inside you pushed me against the nearest wall and kissed me right then and there.”

“Would you have wanted me to do that?” With a flush of uncertainty, Oliver wondered if he had already disappointed Elio.

“In another you asked me to stay still and you would kiss me without me not being allowed to kiss you back.”

Oliver’s face was getting hotter. Elio saw the effect he had on him and was happy. Good. Power reclaimed.

“And in the third–,“ Elio leaned his head back on the headrest. “In the third, I found something in the corner of your mouth and licked it until I couldn’t convince you anymore that some of it wasn’t still there.”

Oliver touched his lip instinctively, brushing away an imperceptible crumb from the cake they had had earlier.

“I’ll get more wine,” Elio decided and got up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story will continue next Thursday again, and the next chapter will be the longest one of this whole story. It has also been one of my personal favorites to write. Take that for what you will ;)


	18. The Music

The bottle of wine was in plain sight in the kitchen, right where he had left it earlier, but Elio stalled, leaning against the edge of the kitchen counter.

He took a deep breath. Oliver was here, in his apartment. Sitting in his chair where he himself had sat dreaming of this for so many times, and he didn’t want to mess this up.

Still, he knew he had to tell Oliver about the one time he had broken their unspoken rule.

 

 

Back in the living room, Elio took his time topping up both of their glasses.

“I looked up your office phone number at Columbia,” he then said, seemingly out of the blue, swirling the drink in his glass. He hoped Oliver wouldn’t be mad. “One year in. I went to the admissions office at school and had them find you in the national university directory. I told them it was for a family matter.”

“You did? Why?”

“I wasn’t going to do anything with it.” Oliver had sounded only puzzled, but Elio felt defensive regardless. “I just wanted to have it. For emergencies.”

Oliver still didn’t understand. “Emergencies? What kind of emergency?”

“Like if I was deathly ill?” As Elio saw Oliver’s horrified expression he hastened to say: “I wasn’t. I’m not. But if I had fallen ill and known I was going to die, I would’ve wanted to let you know. Say goodbye. So that you wouldn’t have thought that I didn’t show up because I didn’t remember. Or care.”

Oliver’s eyes pooled with tenderness and the mere idea that he could have lost Elio in that alternate universe stole his ability to speak. Somehow the possibility had never occurred to him, but it should have, of course it should have. Ten years was plenty of time for a life to take a turn.

“I don’t know. It made sense to me at the time,” Elio shrugged.

Oliver’s fingers tapped slowly on the armrest of his chair during the silence that followed.

“They handed out flyers on campus,” he then started. “About a concert by visiting students from the Boston Conservatory. I never go to those things, but Annie and the boys had gone to her parents’ house that weekend. It was a Saturday matinee and you weren’t performing there, but I didn’t figure it out until it was too late. I sat there in the middle of the row feeling like an idiot for the entire concert and had way too many glasses of bourbon on my way home.”

Elio’s eyes bore into him. “You went there because I might have been there? When was this?”

“Spring ’89. But that’s not all.” Oliver looked guilty. “They were selling subscriptions to your school’s magazine in the lobby after the concert. I arranged it to be delivered to my office and the department secretary has opened the envelopes and brought the magazines to my table for nine years now. I told her I wanted to support arts education.”

Elio tried to wrap his mind around what he had just heard and then something clicked for him. “Wait, so then you saw the…”

“Your alumnus profile in ’94? Yes.”

“Did you like it?” Elio knew he must have sounded like a child asking for a mother’s opinion on a drawing, for approval that meant everything, but he didn’t care.

“Yes. I especially liked the shirt,” Oliver grinned.

Elio squirmed. “It was a stupid idea. They insisted that I wear a jacket, but I rebelled against the dress shirt and wore the t-shirt instead.”

“The Talking Heads t-shirt. I still think you should have given me that back then.”

“Ha. And I scored a brand-new Ralph Lauren from you.” One day he would show Oliver that it still hung in his closet. Unwashed, unworn. “I think I wanted to think that you might see that issue somewhere. Lying on a table at a friend’s house or in a dentist’s waiting room, and would have decided to leaf it through. And if you didn’t remember my face, then maybe together with the shirt…” Elio trailed off. “But I sounded so stupid in the interview. Their editing made me sound really conceited.”

“Anyone who knows you must have known that that couldn’t be further from the truth.”

“Did you?” The question carried more weight than its simple composition of words let on. _Do you know me?_

“I thought you just sounded like you knew what you wanted. The concert halls that you aspired to play in. Carnegie Hall, Musikverein, Berlin Philharmonie.”

“You remember all that?” Elio’s eyebrows knitted together, curious, pleased.

“I… No, I…“ Oliver regretted having said anything. “Never mind.”

“What?”

“Forget it. It’s pathetic.”

“You have to tell me now that you started. It’s a rule.”

“Fine. My jacket.” Oliver pointed at the navy blazer hanging over the armrest of the couch. “In the breast pocket.”

Elio turned around, reached behind him and pulled out a smooth black leather wallet.

“The slot in the back.”

Elio squeezed his fingertips into the tight sleeve as instructed and found a neatly folded, slightly yellowed magazine page. He unfolded it and ended up staring at a picture of himself in a Talking Heads t-shirt and a black jacket.

Looking sheepish, Oliver repeated: “See, pathetic, right?”

“A lot of things,” Elio said slowly. “But not pathetic.” He smoothed the paper on his lap affectionately – not because his own face was on it, but because it was something that had been with Oliver for years. He had been with Oliver, even if he hadn’t known it. He wished he had known it.

“I liked having the reminder. I didn’t look at it often, I just liked knowing it was there.”

Elio held the page up next to his face and Oliver was looking at him in double now.

“I like the original even better,” Oliver said with a smile playing in the corner of his mouth.

“You don’t care that the original has aged?”

“You don’t look a day over twenty-two.”

“Silly. I hope I do. You thought of me as such a kid back then. Do you still feel that way?”

“No. And it wasn’t about you being young, not that alone at least. You were so innocent, I didn’t want to take that away from you.”

“But in a way you did. Not that I blame you. I guess it was time for me to realize life doesn’t work out the way you would want. I had always gotten the big things I wanted. I had had a great childhood, great parents, lots of freedom. Got accepted into the Boston Conservatory when I wanted. Even school was easy; I was used to practicing and reading and enjoyed the music.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t give you then what you wanted.”

A pause.

“Do you think we wasted time?” Oliver asked.

“Maybe. Maybe not. It’s not like there’s a way to know what would have happened. But meeting you did change me.”

“It changed me too.”

“How so?” Elio was curious. To him, Oliver had, despite his internal struggles, seemed like a fully-formed person back then already, whereas Elio himself had still been in a formative phase.

“You saw me,” Oliver said simply. “Instead of the parts that I wanted people to see. And you still didn’t want to run away.”

“No, you were the one who ran.” Elio couldn’t help but say it, but he regretted it immediately when Oliver’s eyes glimmered with the ache of hindsight.

“It wasn’t because of you.”

“I know.”

And Elio did know. For Oliver, it had been too much, too fast, too real, too unreal. 

Their eyes met across the coffee table and Oliver ached for the smart boy who had grown into a wise young man.

“I would really like to kiss you now.”

Elio smiled with a hint of a grimace. “I know. But we need the sweet pain of anticipation to tell us we are really alive.”

“Albert Camus.”

“Correct,” Elio nodded.

He tilted his head and making room on the couch, offered Oliver a consolation prize. “Will you come and sit with me here?”

Oliver got up and sat next to Elio on the couch and Elio placed his legs in his lap. Oliver’s hand settled over Elio’s knee, the other one starting to gently rub his calf as he spoke.

“The hope started to brew in me after that night. That maybe one day, somehow, with someone, I could be myself. But it took years. After one disastrous winter break where I felt everything was a lie, my wife and I had a disastrous fight and were divorced by July.”

“What happened on the break?”

Oliver shook his head. “Nothing happened. That was the point. She didn’t notice anything, even though I had walked feeling like a fraud all my life.”

Elio reached over to caress the nape of his neck and told him gently that maybe it was because he had perfected his hiding. They both knew it wasn’t a good thing, but at least now on that couch, there was no hiding anymore.

“I threw it in her face in the fight. That she had no idea what it was that I wanted. She asked whether I knew that myself either.”

“Did you?”

Oliver’s movements stopped. “I managed to tell her it wasn’t about another woman.” His fingers slid in the opening of the leg of Elio’s jeans and found the bare skin on his ankle. “Things have obviously calmed down between us since.”

“I never would have thought that it had such an effect on you,” Elio said, watching Oliver’s fingers slide back to the top of his foot and then out of view again as he caressed Elio’s ankle under the clothing. “That night.”

“Yeah, well. It did. For me. But I don’t know about you.”

“What do you mean?”

“You mentioned that you almost didn’t come to the bar tonight. I wonder if it would have made much of a difference for you if I hadn’t come, if we had never seen each other again?”

“What are you insinuating?” Elio sounded hurt.

“Like you said, am I just something that you couldn’t have? Maybe this is just a fuck that’s been on your to-do list for ten years. And you’re excited to finally check it off your list, but that’s it.”

Oliver’s crudeness surprised Elio. “Is that what you really think?”

The look on Elio’s face was devastated and it should have been enough for Oliver to stop, but his common sense got overridden by his insecurities: “No, but I don’t actually really know you, so.”

“This isn’t a game for me. You think I’m going to discard you after tonight. Is that what you’re saying?”

“Possibly. After the novelty wears off. After all, you have a fresh box of someone else’s things right there,” Oliver nodded towards the hallway.

His acerbic words aggravated Elio and he pulled his feet away from Oliver’s lap.

“That box has nothing to do with you and me, and I already told you that it wouldn’t even still be here if it was up to me,” he said.

Oliver didn’t say anything, only picked on his fingernails now that his hands didn’t have anything else to do.

“Wait, is this really about you?” Elio sat up straighter, as if he had been hit with an epiphany. “You being scared, making sure you have a reason to run again, convincing yourself that I’m not serious about this? Even though I already knew back then that this was real, no matter how much you denied it or tried to shake my belief in it?”

“Didn’t you have any doubts? Over the years? Not a single one?” Oliver asked, exasperated.

“Only that maybe you weren’t every bit as perfect as my mind had crafted you to be. I wasn’t sure anymore what had been real and if I had imagined the rest.”

Oliver’s shoulders slumped at Elio’s sincere reply and he buried his face in his hands: “This is all just so unusual that it’s hard to know what to believe.”

Elio leaned his temple against Oliver’s. An olive branch after the harsh words. “I did consider the possibility that maybe you wouldn’t like me anymore,” he said quietly, and Oliver thought that there wasn’t a universe where that would have been possible.

“Can I play something for you?” Elio then asked gently.

Oliver rubbed his face. “Of course.”

Elio walked over to the piano but didn’t take any sheet music out. After sitting down on the piano stool, he pulled off his polo sweater and the t-shirt he was wearing underneath got caught at the hem, almost coming off too. The peek at his slim stomach and hips had been generous enough to cause disappointment in Oliver when Elio pulled the t-shirt back down and adjusted the hem.

Without looking at Oliver, he said: “This is my own piece. It’s something I’ve performed a couple of times.”

“What is it called?”

“It doesn’t have a name,” Elio tried.

“Really?”

“No,” he conceded. “It does. It’s called _After_ _Midnight_. Banal, I know.”

Oliver knew it would have been redundant to ask what had inspired it.

“I wanted the first movement to be hypnotizing, engulf the listener as a whole, change them. It develops into an agonizingly long middle section, with tumultuous elements coming to play but leaving almost as abruptly as they entered.”

“And the end?”

Elio traced the edge of one of the black keys, careful not to make a sound yet. “There are two parallel versions of the coda. One is quieter, a disillusioned resolution.”

“And the other?”

“Celebratory, climactic,” Elio bit his lip and blushed at the reveal that a part of him had believed enough in their reunion to compose it to life.

Oliver was curious. “You said you had performed this. Which ending did you use?”

“I’ve done both. Depending on how I felt. Which ending I believed in.”

“Will you play both versions for me, please?”

Elio thought for a moment before agreeing to do so. “Okay.”

He straightened his posture and started from the second version, the one that ended with the triumphant coda.

Oliver watched him from the couch. Elio’s fingers ran lightly over the keys, captivating Oliver’s attention with the first movement that played sweetly, even playfully. The change to the second part was abrupt, and what followed was atonal and distorted. Even if he hadn’t described it to Oliver beforehand, the internal storm would have been obvious as it was written all over the notes.

The coda brought back the delight; Elio’s face and his whole body lived with the piece, and what didn’t come through in the notes was clearly on display on his happy, mesmerized face. When words leave off, music begins, as someone said somewhere. Oliver forgot who.

He applauded at the end.

“And here it is with the other ending.”

Elio started from the beginning again, and Oliver began to feel like he already knew the piece.

He was again entranced by the first passage; then rattled by the irregularity of the movement in the middle.

But then Elio moved to the alternate coda and the tone changed, and with it, the mood in the room. In sharp contrast to the first version, there was no life anymore behind the notes in this one. No more joy, and instead, a sad, silvery arrangement of monotone chords. The expression on Elio’s face changed, too, to a bittersweet acceptance of the emptiness.

After the final note there were just several bars of silence during which Oliver’s heart pounded in his chest.

At the end, Elio swiveled on the piano stool towards Oliver to signify that the piece was over but kept his eyes on the floor.

Applause would have felt out of place as Oliver realized that this was what it would have felt like for Elio if they had never met again. A heart-rending monotony. A world of silence.

If Oliver had ever thought that Elio wasn’t serious, that fulfilling their pact was just a notch in his bedpost or a fun story to tell his friends, his doubts were now dispelled.

He used sheer will to keep his eyes from watering as he walked over to the piano and cradled Elio’s face, placing a light kiss on the top of his head. Elio pressed his face head-on against Oliver’s chest.

They stayed like that for a long moment until Oliver kneeled to have his face at the same level as Elio’s and pulled him towards him. The buttons on Oliver’s shirt had left round imprints on Elio’s pale cheek and Oliver ran his thumb lightly over the marks.

“You never have to play that second version again, okay? I promise.”

A deep breath leaving him, Elio swallowed and nodded.

Their noses were already caressing and lips almost touching, but Oliver wasn’t sure if Elio still wanted to play his waiting game, so he asked.

“Can I kiss you?”

Elio closed his eyes and the reply was immediate. “Yes. Please.”

Oliver looked at his now peaceful face, lashes creating shadows on the tops of his cheeks, eyes fluttering expectantly behind the closed eyelids. Oliver leaned in to lightly kiss one of them, barely, just enough to see Elio’s eyebrows instinctively knit closer together from the surprise.

He moved to do the same to the other eyelid.

With a whimper layered with frustration, Elio exhaled: “Oliver. Please just kiss me already.”

Oliver smiled against his temple, pressing another light kiss there. Near Elio’s ear, he hummed: “I am kissing you.”

Enjoying this newly-given permission to touch, his lips kept grazing along Elio’s earlobe and then his jaw, pressing caresses as light as gossamer on his skin until he reached the freckles on Elio’s chin and stopped.

Elio kept his eyes squeezed shut and only felt puffs of Oliver’s breath on the delicate skin above his top lip. Oliver watched him swallow, watched him wet his lips with the tip of his tongue in anticipation.

He pressed his thumb on Elio’s bottom lip and his own eyes now also falling close, replaced his thumb with his mouth, sucking gently. Elio let out a faintest gasp and when he eagerly parted his lips, Oliver slipped his tongue between them and tasted inside.

The kiss, ten years in the making and one birthday wish later, started out tender but quickly grew deeper as Oliver lost himself in it. Elio’s mouth, his top lip, his bottom lip, his smooth beguiling tongue – to Oliver, they were all like a fountain of nectar to a deprived man, and Elio let him drink from it, kissing him back equally parched, hands clutching Oliver’s shirt, nape, anywhere he could reach, and even when Oliver had to break the kiss to catch his breath, he filled the room with the melody of the gentle laugh he let out when Elio wouldn’t stop delivering little kisses on Oliver’s mouth that, breathless or not, wouldn’t stop smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _We need the sweet pain of anticipation to tell us we are really alive._ -Albert Camus
> 
>  _When words leave off, music begins._ -Heinrich Heine
> 
> Fun fact: I never really write my stories chronologically, and the scene with their conversation about the phone number and the magazine article was the first one to come alive for this particular story over six months ago. Everything else, all the lead-up from 1988 up to that moment in 1998 as well as what’s yet to come, has pivoted from that, in large part because I wanted to concoct this around something that would reflect my favorite _Call Me by Your Name_ quote, _“You are the only person I’d like to say goodbye to when I die, because only then will this thing I call my life make any sense.”_
> 
> Next Thursday, we once again pick up right where we left off, and all of you who have made it this far on their slow burn journey: thank you for reading and congratulations, you will be rewarded with an extended stay in flufftown.


	19. The Ambrosia

“Will you play something else for me?” Oliver asked, still smiling, still kneeling in front of Elio who slowly grazed the softness of his cheek along Oliver’s short stubble, back and forth.

“Maybe later,” Elio said and got up, pulling Oliver up with him. He took a hold of Oliver’s hand, led him back to the couch and pushed him to sit down. Climbing onto Oliver’s lap, he leaned in to whisper against his lips: “First I’m going to kiss you for a long time.”

Elio wasted no time in pressing his mouth onto Oliver’s again. Fingers gently splayed along Oliver’s jaw, his tongue explored Oliver’s mouth slowly but determinedly, as if on an expedition.

When he momentarily laid his head on Oliver’s shoulder with a satisfied sigh, Oliver traced the skin from his chin to his Adam’s apple. Elio stretched his neck like a cat under the touch, and Oliver pressed his nose against his skin, breathing in the warmth before in one easy move, he lowered Elio onto the couch and leaned over him.

“Oliver,” Elio half-moaned, half-mumbled at the sensations of the delicate sucks when Oliver, at last, was able to to sink his lips onto Elio’s long, milky-white neck.

Oliver parted from the warmth of Elio’s throat long enough to swallow his name from Elio’s lips and gave him back his own in a reciprocating kiss, but Elio didn’t let his mouth go, his lips taking it hostage instead.

Oliver didn’t mind. His only thought was about Elio and it was going around in circles in his brain. This, this, this was what had been missing all these years.

Instinctively, his hand found its way under Elio’s shirt at the waist and Elio’s skin was just as soft there as it had been at the column of his throat, like velvet weaved with the finest silk. Oliver rolled them over on the couch so that he could push his touch further under the shirt, bundling it up along Elio’s back as he now lay on top of Oliver, never stopping the stream of his kisses.

When Elio granted him a second to breathe, Oliver told him he had never kissed anyone like this before.

“Is it because of me, or because you had to wait ten years for this?” Elio asked, panting. His position had already allowed him to feel that there were parts of Oliver that definitely weren’t hating what they were doing.

“It’s only been ten seconds now and it’s still beyond anything I’ve ever felt,” Oliver said and kissed him again. “It’s definitely you.”

His admission made Elio smug, maybe too much so for anyone else’s taste, but Oliver liked him like that.

 

 

Elio fiddled with the pointed collar of Oliver’s shirt as they laid squeezed together on the narrow couch, legs entangled. The couch was barely wide enough to accommodate Oliver, let alone them both, and Oliver held onto Elio to stop him from falling off the edge. Elio didn’t seem worried, trusting Oliver to keep him afloat.

He would occasionally touch Oliver’s lip lightly with his finger, and Oliver’s tongue would come out chasing it.

“Did you make a birthday wish today?”

“I did.”

“Was it about me?” Elio prodded, bold.

“I’m not going to tell you. You’re already too smug,” Oliver said, playfully nudging Elio on his side.

Elio moved to lie on top of him and grabbed him by the chin, much more serious than Oliver had been. “So it was about me. What did you wish for?”

“I regretted not kissing you back then.”

“In your hotel room?” A kiss on the corner of Oliver’s mouth. “When I asked you to?” Another.

“Yes. Or even before we got to the hotel. In the rain. Not that we really could have; there were people around. But, you know.” Oliver’s voice trailed off.

Elio’s face lit up with a confident smile.

“That–,” he pushed himself to sit up, “–that we can arrange.”

He got off the couch and headed for the bathroom, and when Oliver was too confused to follow him immediately, he shouted: “Come here, what are you waiting for?”

When Oliver arrived at the doorway, Elio had not only set up the shower but stepped under it fully clothed, letting the water wash over him.

“You’re insane,” Oliver said looking at Elio standing under the spray, quickly getting sopping wet.

“Never been more lucid. Get in here.”

Elio extended his hand and despite Oliver’s reluctance, pulled him into the shower with him. The water hit Oliver’s face instantly and made him squint.

“Now imagine Boylston Street, hurried rush-hour commuters pushing us, everyone annoyed because it’s Monday again.”

Elio gave a little bump on one of Oliver’s arms, then on the other.

Oliver started to smile. The water was soothingly warm.

“Sure.”

“Now imagine me, having just ran back to you, because you had finally gotten over yourself and asked me to come over to your hotel.”

“Were you surprised?”

“Are you kidding? I walked so slowly, and almost lost hope when I was about to turn the corner, because I knew that that would have been it. You wouldn’t have run after me.”

“I might have.”

Elio smoothed the damp wrinkles and folds of Oliver’s white shirt that had become see-through under the spray and was now clinging to his skin on his chest. Since it was all wet now, Elio knew he would get to take that off soon, along with the rest of Oliver’s clothes.

“My world was already getting darker the farther you got,” Oliver added. “It might have hit me when you were gone.”

Elio’s fingers played with the back of Oliver’s neck. “I’m not gone now.”

“And I’m very glad.” Oliver leaned in to lap the water pooling at Elio’s clavicle.

“And we have the rain I made. See?”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to ask me what I’m going to do about it.”

“What are you going to do about it, Oliver?”

Oliver’s palm was big enough to cradle Elio’s entire head, wet curls and all. “Can you imagine if I had gotten on the right train to begin with? Never gotten lost?” he mused.

“You’re lucky I happened to find you,” Elio tried to say but his last words were muffled by Oliver’s lips.

 

 

“It’s your birthday after all, so can I now take all of these off and finally see you in your birthday suit?”

They were still under the shower, Elio tugging on the collar of Oliver’s soaking wet shirt, then the placket, a belt loop.

“Aren’t you clever.” Oliver ran his teeth gently along Elio’s jaw. He liked the feeling of Elio’s skin between his teeth.

Elio smirked. “I am, aren’t I. So can I?”

Oliver pulled away to look at his face and shook his head. What would he do without the bravery of this boy? “Be my guest.”

With that permission, Elio reached behind him to turn off the shower and went to work on Oliver’s buttons. One, two, three, four… They kept slipping from his wet fingers. Why did they always put so many of these on shirts?

He finally conquered all of them and peeled Oliver’s wet shirt off of him, then rolled down Oliver’s jeans that were heavy with all the water they had absorbed. Every item clung tightly to Oliver’s skin, resisting to come off, and Elio laughed.

“This is the least smooth, least romantic undressing I have ever performed.”

“And how many have there been?” Oliver teased while Elio was crouched at his feet, rolling off his socks.

“None with wet clothing. So many of my firsts are you,” Elio said to the bathroom tiles.

 

 

When there was nothing left to take off anymore, Elio pulled Oliver to the middle of the bathroom and handed him a thick bath towel, watching intently as Oliver started drying himself off.

Standing naked right in front of Elio, he didn’t make the slightest effort to turn away and Elio was getting harder in his own wet jeans by the minute, all at the mere sight of him. Elio usually liked being naked first, but now enjoyed the show playing for him at close distance. The broad shoulders framing Oliver’s chest and the pattern of hair on it, the hint of the swell of his buttocks that were still out of Elio’s view, his beautiful cock nested between his legs and half-hard from Elio’s gaze – it all seemed to invite Elio to touch, to study in closest detail, to lick, to sink in.

Once Oliver was done, he leaned back against a sink, the towel now tied around his waist low enough for Elio to still see his hipbones protruding beneath the faintly olive skin.

Water dripped from Elio’s hair and clothes and formed pools on the bathroom tiles as he reached over and touched the edge of one hipbone, grazed the line of it, pushed his fingertips under the towel.

Oliver didn’t move.

Elio pressed against him in his soaked clothes, kissed him on the lips and then on his chest, latching on to his skin openmouthed like an eel.

“You’re all wet,” Oliver murmured into his ear, the heavy humidity hanging in the bathroom. They had had the shower running on hot for so long that the mirrors were now fogged, which was just as well. Elio didn’t need multiple mirrored Olivers; this one was enough to fill all his senses.

Oliver pushed him back enough to be able to start unbuttoning his shirt and, in turn, to release him from his wet clothes. Elio had worked as fast as he could; Oliver’s movements were slow, decided. Whenever there was an unpleasant shiver going through Elio as the wet clothes were getting increasingly chilly against his skin, Oliver made up for it with a kiss on the spot.

When he had Elio completely naked too, Oliver looked around the bathroom for a towel, but Elio untied the one on Oliver’s waist instead.

”Use this one.”

His move served two purposes: both getting Oliver naked again and getting to be dried with the same terrycloth that had soaked the waterdrops from his skin. Elio already envied the molecules of his own skin that would get to mix with Oliver’s within the porous fabric.

Elio was wrapped in the towel carefully and entirely like a child and Oliver caressed him all over, first gently rubbing over the towel to soak up the water. He distracted Elio with a kiss near his ear while one of his hands made its way underneath the towel and then the other, until the towel dropped onto the floor as no one was holding onto it anymore. Oliver’s hands kept wandering lower and lower on Elio’s lithe body that was finally his to touch, until the exploration led to him kneeling in front of Elio.

This was becoming a pattern, him, the tall one, being the one to look up, and Elio reaching down to caress his face. Oliver pressed a kiss to the crease of Elio’s groin, his palms riding up the backs of Elio’s thighs and Elio discovered they were able to cover the entire surface of his buttocks as they held him in place.

He leaned back against the low bathroom cabinet, gripping on the towel rack, and the drawer pull pressed into his lower back uncomfortably, but when Oliver started slowly kissing the wet curls at the base of Elio’s cock, there was no way Elio was going to move an inch.

Oliver parted his lips at the base, lapping there and then dragging his lips along his length, all the way to the head. Teasing, he returned back to the tufts of hair before doing it again but this time with the wide of his tongue, causing Elio to gasp and tighten his grip on the towel rack.

Oliver let the tip rest on his tongue, looking up at Elio who was painfully hard by now. The sight of his cock on Oliver’s tongue almost made him come right then and there and he squeezed his eyes shut, hissing when Oliver closed his lips around the head. “Fuck.”

Oliver swirled his tongue once before releasing him.

A new ragged gasp echoed in the bathroom. “No, no, no, don’t stop,” Elio groaned, desperate.

“I wasn’t going to,” Oliver mumbled against the warmed skin of the shaft and licked along his whole length once more before taking as much of him in as he could in his soft, slick mouth.

“Fuck,” Elio cursed again through his teeth as Oliver started sliding his mouth back and forth, sucking and lapping slowly. Elio’s hands were getting sweaty and slipping from the towel rack, so he steadied himself on Oliver’s shoulders instead.

Now Oliver liked being the one in control. He didn’t have much experience in this, certainly not as much as he assumed Elio had, but he tried alternating the pattern of his tongue and Elio trembled at all the variations. His hands squeezed Oliver’s shoulders tighter and his breathing was getting heavier and heavier, which both had to be good things. Oliver let the heavy tip lay on his tongue while his hand worked the slick length, and when he then sucked on the head again against his tongue, he made Elio cry out.

“Fuck, Oliver, no, no, no…”

Oliver stopped, scared. “Was that not good? Did I hurt you?”

“No, it was too good. And I don’t want to come yet,” Elio pleaded, eyes closed.

But hearing that only made Oliver do it again, firmly and forcing another breath to get hitched in Elio’s throat. “Look at me, Elio. We already played your game. This is mine. No more waiting.”

The commanding delivery of that statement, combined with the sight of Oliver’s determined blue eyes looking up at him as his mouth enclosed Elio’s flesh, sent Elio over the precipice of pleasure and he came all over Oliver’s tongue.

The afterwave made Elio’s knees weak and before he could collapse on the floor, Oliver got up and gathered him in his arms, holding him up. It was the first time their bodies had ever pressed fully flush against each other, both completely naked, only skin touching skin. There was something primal in that connection, something that had survived between humans through the ages, Elio thought hazily when he slowly made acquaintance with reality again.

Drops of his come were glistening on Oliver’s chin and Elio wiped them off with his fingers, but Oliver sucked those fingers into his mouth too, licking them clean like they were covered with ambrosia.

Elio watched him closely and asked between sharp inhales: “Would you like to see the bedroom now?”

 


	20. The Happiness

There was plenty of space on Elio’s bed, but they lay on it pressed just closely together as they had been earlier in the night on the couch, only this time without their clothes on. Elio said shyly, in passing: “I liked that. In the bathroom. When you took control.”

“I think I noticed,” Oliver grinned.

Elio adjusted the blanket over them. As much as he would have liked nothing better than to feast his eyes freely on Oliver’s body, it was still too early in the spring and his apartment always got chilly after the sun went down. “I hadn’t thought I would. I like my independence.”

Oliver lifted the edge of the blanket to take a look at their bodies. “I imagined how you would look like this. Next to me. No clothes, not even my borrowed clothes, just you. Your every plane, every crease.” Oliver’s fingertips grazed Elio’s side, hand dipping under his back as he pulled him closer on the bed.

No one had ever looked at Elio like that. With the obvious lust in his gaze, but also with an awe, like he was a magical being that Oliverdidn’t quite believe to be real and who therefore had to be touched constantly so as not to break the spell.

Elio accepted it gladly. He had so often been the more affectionate one, was so by nature. Being doted on as an only child was something that he had gotten used to when living with his parents, but none of his attempts at relationships had delivered the same level of attention. Not with women, not with men. Not until now.

It helped that Oliver’s large hand covered vast areas of his skin at a time, managed to cup the back of his head at once, warmed his entire belly. Oliver’s lips helped too: there was an entire universe between them.

“I like kissing you,” Elio announced as the best truth he had ever known, before he retreated to the foot of the bed and grazed Oliver’s ankle with his nose. “I want to claim a spot that’s entirely mine. Has anyone kissed you here?”

“I don’t think so,” Oliver said, amused, yet overwhelmed by the adoration behind Elio’s words.

“It’s mine now,” Elio declared as he worried a spot next to the ankle bone with his lips.

Oliver wanted to tell him that all of him was Elio’s now, had probably been for a long time, and that there was no return policy.

Elio lay there, his hand absent-mindedly caressing Oliver’s knee until he started shifting uncomfortably.

“I need to go to the bathroom.”

“So go.”

“I don’t want to let go of you. What if I lose you for another ten years? Come with me.”

 

 

Oliver kissed the nape of Elio’s neck, caressed his shoulder blades while he relieved himself. They had left the bathroom door open, and through the doorway, Oliver caught a glimpse of the photos on the wall in the hallway.

“Where are those from?” he asked, cheek against the still damp curls on the back of Elio’s head.

“From our summer villa.”

After Elio was done, he led Oliver to the framed photographs, all different in size, all in black and white. Oliver’s arms around his waist and his chin on his shoulder, Elio pointed at the photos.

“That one is from the house: that’s my mother reading in the sun lounger,” he said of the biggest one.

“Looks very idyllic.”

“It is. Boston has its moments too, but that right there is home.”

“Are you planning to move back at some point?”

“No. My life is here now, my career. I visit in the summers when I can. Would you move?”

“To Italy?”

“Out of New York.”

“I’ve taught classes at Harvard a lot lately, and I occasionally think about moving here when the boys are both in prep school. And what’s that?” Oliver pointed at yet another picture.

“That’s where we go swimming. That’s my friend Marzia on the blanket, we were seventeen that summer. The boys used to give piggyback rides to the girls or carry them to the water and throw them in.”

“You did that with Marzia?”

“I would watch the others do it and dream of someone who could carry me.”

“Really.”

Elio shook his head, scrunched his nose. “It was silly.”

Oliver slipped his arm under Elio’s and scooped him up easily.

“Oliver, no!” Elio exclaimed, but soon his surprise was overtaken by delight. “Where are you taking me? Oliver!”

Oliver carried him to the bedroom.

“Don’t let go of me,” Elio begged when he was being lowered on the bed and pulled Oliver on top of him. He clung to Oliver and murmured onto his neck: “I’m happy, Oliver.”

“You’re just horny.”

“No, happy. You are making me happy. Remember what I said about liking my independence?”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t want that right now. I want you to do whatever you want to me.”

Oliver’s cock swelled in response to the invitation and it didn’t go unnoticed.

“I like the effect I have on your body,” Elio told to the curve of Oliver’s neck and didn’t put up any fight when Oliver took hold of his hands and pinned them deep in the pillows above his head.

 

 

It happened almost wordlessly; Elio’s panting, Oliver’s breaths guiding their way. After Oliver had filled his mouth with so many kisses that they spilled freely all over his neck, Elio spread his legs and hooked them around Oliver. His upper body contorted to reach into his nightstand and a small bottle and a condom were pressed into Oliver’s hands.

Elio’s undulation under him, against him, because of him, almost undid Oliver on the spot, but Elio managed to buy them some more time by grabbing him tightly at the right place. Strands of jealousy flashed through Oliver when he realized how effortlessly Elio knew what to do and he was acutely aware that there had been others before him.

But then it was quickly forgotten when Elio guided Oliver to his entrance, eyes liquid with trust. The slick, tight heat inside was divine and Elio kept inviting him deeper and Oliver followed.

Elio’s need to have Oliver inside him was only exceeded by Oliver’s desire for him, for the boy who was the bold one, who had had the courage to tell him what he wanted all those years ago, when Oliver had yet not been brave enough to acknowledge he wanted the same thing. The boy who had wanted to be his since he first met him. The boy who shamelessly took the lead but was now pliantly giving his body to Oliver.

 

 

“Oliver, I’m close.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I don’t think I can hold it much longer.”

“No, I’m not letting you come yet.”

Oliver’s decisive words almost backfired – he could tell that that alone was about to cause Elio to barrel over the point of no return.

Elio stilled his hand around his own cock and hissed. “Fuck.”

“I’m almost there,” Oliver assured him and then one strangled moan of _please_ from Elio did it for both of them. Oliver’s release was a litany of Elio’s name; Elio’s was interspersed with curses and topped with one final sweet song when Oliver swept his matted hair away from his face.

_“Oliver.”_

They were a mess until Elio fished a day-old t-shirt from the floor beside his bed and haphazardly cleaned them up. He didn’t get all of it off of his chest, which Oliver assumed was intentional when Elio took his hand and pressed it against his sticky skin.

“This is yours.”

Oliver wanted to ask whether he meant his heart under the palm and the skin, or, more prosaically, the fluid that Oliver had just coaxed out of him.

“I want to glue you to me, hold you here as long as it takes for you to permanently attach,” Elio said, eyes closed.

It was still his post-orgasmic babbling, but Oliver also realized he was testing him. Wanting to see whether he would judge him; whether he would take it, or leave it if Elio went too far.

And Oliver wanted to take it, take all of it, whatever Elio wanted him to take, take whatever he was offering. Take him. Keep him.

Oliver didn’t reply but Elio didn’t seem to expect him to as he lay there, still in the tail end of his pleasure.

Oliver could feel his heartbeat slowly calm down under his palm. When Elio started to open his eyes, he looked perfectly content.

Oliver smiled at him and asked, suddenly thirsty: “Is there any wine left?”

Elio reached behind him but discovered the bottle empty. “We finished this bottle. I can get more from the kitchen but I think I’m out of the good Barolo.“

“Right now, I wouldn’t be able to separate a Barolo from a burgundy, baby,” Oliver assured him as Elio curled against his sweaty side.

“Say that again.”

“I wouldn’t be able to–“

“Not that,” Elio intercepted.

Oliver’s brain was still working slow but when he caught up to what Elio meant, he smiled.

“I’m getting hard again just from you saying that,” Elio groaned, and Oliver felt the evidence against his thigh. “Especially with that voice. Your students must be in heaven in class, by the way.”

Elio forced himself out of bed but pummeled Oliver’s foot with kisses on his way to the kitchen.

 

 

“I just wish….” Elio stared at the ceiling after almost dousing the bed with his liberal pour of the wine that he had deemed only decent, but that Oliver did not see anything wrong with.

“What?”

“Nothing. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“You have to tell me now that you started. Someone told me it’s a rule,” Oliver said.

“I wish I had waited for you,” Elio said sadly. “That I wouldn’t have experimented with all those people who weren’t you.”

“Don’t say that. It wasn’t experimenting. You were living your life.” Oliver pushed his fingers deep within Elio’s hair. “I’m not holding anything against you.”

“Did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Experiment. After. Because when we met you told me you had only had that thing with your college roommate but nothing else.”

Oliver pulled his hand out of Elio’s curls and rolled on his back. He didn’t want to look at Elio when he would tell him.

Oliver only remembered flashes of it now, the weird absinthe green walls in the hotel room, the way they had pretended not to know each other the next day when they had seen each other in the conference center again. The persistence which with the man had tried to get him to kiss him even though Oliver had been adamant from the start that he wouldn’t do that.

“Once. It was a conference in Berlin. I figured it would be far away enough from home. He was younger than me but more experienced than me. We only knew each other’s first names and I suspect neither of us gave the real one.”

In a twisted way, it had felt like he was doubly cheating. If he was to do anything outside of his marriage, it should have been with Elio.

“What did he look like?”

“Please don’t ask me that.”

“Why?”

“The fact that you ask tells me you already know.”

Elio curled his finger around Oliver’s thumb on his chest. “I have my suspicions. Did it help?”

“Yes and no. After that, I knew I wasn’t just after any lanky young man with hyacinthine hair.” Oliver smirked as he turned back to Elio again. Then he remembered how he hadn’t felt any lighter when it had been over. “But also no, it didn’t help. I didn’t miss you any less.”

Elio burrowed his face onto Oliver’s chest and thus began the healing of the sadness that had made its nest there years ago, in the moment when he had realized Elio had been a singular experience, impossible to replicate.


	21. The Morning

After they had taken their second shower of the night, they returned to the bed, now properly slipping under the covers. Oliver stared at the ceiling, whispering sweet nothings that weren’t nothing but rather everything and Elio’s replies made less and less sense the sleepier he got. When there was no longer an answer, Oliver looked to his side.

Elio had fallen asleep with his mouth slightly open, his dark lashes fanned on his pale skin. The sleep erased years off of his face, and he looked as angelic as he had the last time Oliver had been lucky enough to have him sleep next to him.

Oliver should have been sleeping too, but his heart was still racing from everything that had happened.

The glare from the limping street light flickered behind the curtains, as Oliver recounted the evening that seemed to belong to another realm or be the plot of a fictional film. Yet, the soft sounds of breathing coming from Elio next to him were very real.

Maybe movies drew from real life and not the other way around?

Still, it had only been one night, and it was terrifying how much Oliver wanted more of them, more, for every night of the rest of his life.

But would Elio really want them, too? He had claimed this wasn’t just a game to him, but maybe he couldn’t help himself? Maybe he would want something else in the morning, now that the shiny wrapping paper had been torn off and he had already gotten to play with his gift.

For Oliver, it had been a journey to even get to this point and he had had to make it on his own, without Elio. He wanted to start the next one with him.

There were so many things he wanted to tell Elio, ask him, show him, do with him. As Oliver recalled everything that they had already done together that night, his thoughts rushed one step further and the resulting fantasies made his cheeks bloom hotter in the dark. There were things he had not done with anyone, had not had particular interest in even, but with Elio, everything was suddenly cast in a new light. But would there be time to share all that with Elio, or was their film getting closer to the final scene and the only thing left to roll would be the end credits after sunrise?

Elio slept next to him soundly but when Oliver finally fell asleep, it was in mixed thoughts.

 

 

Elio woke up first in the morning and managed to slip out of bed without waking Oliver. He found their clothes now dry in the bathroom and after a short deliberation in front of the two pairs of boxers, he put on Oliver’s and went to the kitchen.

There was nothing there he could pass off as breakfast. He hadn’t stocked up; yet another clue that maybe he hadn’t believed in Oliver showing up, staying for the night, staying till morning.

With Flynn it had never been a question, really; it had always been up to Elio to decide whether they would have a morning together or not. Often Elio had wanted to get the morning out of the way quickly, have coffee ready on offer when they woke up so that he could soon have the apartment to himself again. He had had a habit of saying he needed to practice, just to get Flynn to leave.

Elio realized he wanted Oliver to never leave. He wished he could hide all food, all necessities that Oliver would have needed to get himself ready for the day so that he could keep Oliver there and not lose him to the world outside the apartment.

 

  
When Elio returned to the bedroom, Oliver was sleeping on his stomach, the sheets only covering him up to his waist. The smooth sheen of his shoulder blades basking in the morning light, the curve of his lower back on full display. Knowing where the curve led made something tighten low in Elio’s stomach.

Oliver stirred. “Are you watching me sleep?” he mumbled against the pillow.

“No,” Elio said tenderly, and Oliver heard the smile in his voice even without turning around. “Yes. My sleeping Cupid.”

“Except I’m not going to fly away in the morning.”

“This time,” Elio corrected, grazing a single finger along the edge of Oliver’s shoulder.

That made Oliver roll over.

“Ever.” Oliver grabbed Elio by his arm and his strength still weakened by sleep, only managed to clumsily pull him back to the bed.

Elio stumbled on top of him. “There’s nothing here for breakfast. Not even coffee.”

Oliver’s eyes took in Elio’s bare chest.

“That’s fine, we can go out. But I’m not hungry yet. Not for food at least.” He rubbed Elio’s back in wide strokes and his hand met the waistband of his own boxers. “Aren’t these mine? When did these appear?”

Elio laughed and kissed him. “I’m sure you have ways of making them disappear again.”

He didn’t get the response he expected: Oliver didn’t laugh. The morning sun had not dispelled his worries from the night hours and eyes serious, he asked: “Are you sure? You didn’t get me out of your system and that was it?”

“You live in my system now.” As he spoke, Elio squirmed out of the boxers and under the covers until he was flush against Oliver. “I wish I could have all your cells in my system.”

He kissed the underside of Oliver’s jaw. “I will be playing at Carnegie Hall in a couple of weeks. Will you come?”

“Me?”

“Yes. My parents are coming, too. But you don’t have to meet them if you think it’s too soon.”

It was the immense relief of realizing Elio saw into the future with him, of not having to say goodbye again, of the first inkling that maybe he had found his way – dare he even think it – home. It all bundled up inside Oliver and turned into a mist that glassed his eyes and startled Elio.

“Are you...? Oliver.”

“Do you really want me there? Or, anywhere, still?”

“Of course,” Elio said, puzzled.

Oliver looked at him, starting to believe that this might be his reality, after all. As his features softened, Elio smushed his face against his, nose petting Oliver’s temple.

“I want you there. I don’t care if a single ticket has been sold, as long as you are there.” Elio kissed Oliver’s eyelids, damp around the edges. “My manager might care, but I won’t. Besides, didn’t you want a free ticket once? I’m only paying up my poker debts.”

Elio ended by placing a soft kiss on Oliver’s lips, but when he tried to pull away, Oliver pulled him back in before rolling them over. The kiss was deep, betrothing, with Elio’s head sinking into his pillow, before escalating to a heated string of more kisses that ended with both of them breathless and Elio pushing his hand between their stomachs.

“Carnegie is not the only place I want you in,” he said, his smile accentuating the innuendo.

“Really? Aren’t you still sore from last night?”

“Not that much.”

“Are you sure?”

“Uh-huh.” His hand was already wrapped around Oliver’s cock, and it didn’t take much to persuade it into cooperation.

“But I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You’ll only hurt me if you don’t do it.”

“Still, I think…”

Elio’s eyes narrowed with worry. “Unless you don’t want to, anymore? Was last night too much? We don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to.”

“No, I want to, I just thought that…”

Oliver knew the color must have been rising up his neck already, as he now thought about his nightly reveries in the daylight. It was something he had never done before, not in Berlin, not in the Harvard dorms with Peter. With Elio, he wanted them to be equal and he had surprised even himself by how much he wanted to feel Elio inside him. Yet, he wasn’t sure what words to use to ask and he pleaded with his eyes for Elio to understand him without any, but no such luck. Elio only looked baffled.

Oliver closed his eyes and said the words quickly.

“I want you to fuck me, Elio.”

A smile spread on Elio’s face. “Why didn’t you just say so?”

He intertwined his fingers with Oliver’s and crouched on top of him as he kissed him deeply. “Open your eyes. Have you had anyone–“

“No.”

Elio watched Oliver up close. He had been with men who had never been with another man before, so this curiosity mixing with trepidation wasn’t new to him. Yet, the level of trust it required from Oliver, who very much wanted to be in control of himself, meant everything.

“We’ll take it slow, okay?”

Oliver nodded.

 

 

They kissed for a long time before Elio reached for the bottle on the nightstand. He flipped the top open before realizing they had used it all up during the night.

“Just a second.”

Elio got out of the bed, leaping to the other side of his bedroom to pull out two fresh bottles from a drawer.

Oliver watched him contemplate between the two. “You don’t have coffee, but you have several back-ups of lubricant?”

“Priorities,” Elio shrugged, before deciding on one of them and jumping back onto the bed.

 

 

“Do you like this?” Elio asked and tried to read Oliver’s expression.

Oliver nodded, nervous, yet impatient.

Elio was half-buried in him and it had been a strange feeling at first, but after Elio had hit on the right angle, it had gotten better, much better. Elio had made sure to pace himself, even if his primal instinct was to lose himself deep in Oliver completely, and when Oliver had finally arched his back and let out the first moan, Elio had smiled, proud.

“This is–,“ Oliver had panted, overwhelmed.

“I know.” More proud smiles.

“Can you move?”

Elio pulled out a little and then pushed in again, and Oliver was clearly relaxing now because he was able to get in deeper than before. Their simultaneous moans brought out wide smiles from both of them.

Elio leaned over Oliver, and his aim had been to kiss Oliver on the lips, but Oliver latched feverishly onto his throat, licking and sucking while his hands held Elio by his shoulders. Elio laughed softly into Oliver’s ear out of sheer happiness.

“I love this, Oliver,” he managed before abruptly sinking his teeth in Oliver’s shoulder. Oliver had lifted his hips, eager to invite Elio all the way in and the sudden movement caused him to almost come and he tried to stop himself, but then Oliver did it again and Elio couldn’t help himself anymore. Next thing he knew, he was pulsating in Oliver and cursing against his shoulder.

“Did you come in me?” Oliver whispered.

“Uh-huh.” Elio pulled himself out, sweaty face now leaning on Oliver’s knee. “Sorry.”

“No, that was good,” Oliver said. “Come here.”

Elio crawled to the top of the bed only to collapse on Oliver’s shoulder where the white teeth marks were starting to regain color. He would have wanted to do something to Oliver’s cock that was still waiting, demanding, but he was limp and the best he could do was to watch Oliver finish himself. Oliver didn’t mind, he had done this so many times before and the only exception was that now he didn’t have to close his eyes to see his fantasy. No, Elio was right by his side, stuck to his skin, sweaty, sated, beautiful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know, I'm not the least bit happy about the prospect of having to let these two go, but as it happens, we are facing the final chapter next week. I hope to see you there, same time, same place, as the boys venture out of the apartment and into the world.


	22. The Breakfast

Having Elio lying next to him, looking up at him with those eyes that were all golden flecks now, made Oliver’s quota of happiness for the past eight hours feel so full that his thoughts inevitably wandered to the world beyond their four walls.

”I should call Annie at some point. Let her know I’m still alive.”

“Will you tell her about me?”

“Would you want me to?”

“I told my father about you. Earlier, I mean.”

“You did?”

“Nothing specific. Except that I couldn’t stop thinking about you. And that you kind of work in his field. Oh no,” Elio groaned. “I’m sure you two will ditch me as soon as you ever get together. He always tried to get me to make friends with his summer assistants but whenever I made any progress, he stole them from me anyway when I couldn’t follow all their discussions.”

“You know, I once almost applied for a summer residence in Italy, before my oldest son was born, but I don’t know who it would have been with. Does your father take any applications from Columbia?”

“All over, I guess.”

“There may be an alternate universe where I applied for it,” Oliver suggested.

Elio kissed his shoulder. “I like this universe.”

“I do too. But this one also has my kids, and Annie. I really should try and call them.” Oliver looked at the time. ”It’s half past eight, they must be up already. I wonder what explanation Annie has given to the kids.”

“Do you jog in the mornings?”

“I try.”

“Maybe she said that that’s where you were.”

“I better do it before they worry. Can I use your phone?”

 

 

Oliver made the call from the kitchen. He had not been prepared for this, but luckily found the hotel’s business card in his pocket. Remembering their room number took two tries, but he pushed away any thoughts the lady at the reception might have had about his general state of absent-mindedness. Finally he managed to get through to the right room.

“Hi Annie, it’s me. Everything okay in there?”

“Good morning to you too. Everything’s fine.”

“And the boys?”

“They are perfectly fine. And you?”

“Yes. Very much so. But…it turns out I need to stay a bit longer.”   

“Okay. I figured as much.” Oliver could hear the smile in her voice. “I will take the kids back to New York. Phil will meet us at the station and drive us home.”      

"That’s great. Thank you. I’m so sorry to have to do this to you. Say hi to Phil for me. He must really love you if he’s willing to drive into the city to pick you guys up.” Oliver was rambling. “Oh. What will you tell the boys?”

“That dad met an old friend yesterday that he wants to catch up with. I already told them that that’s where you were now.”

“What did they say?”

“Ben asked if it was an old girlfriend.”

Oliver sighed. “I can see there will be long discussions ahead.”

“Only when you’re ready. And the boys will be fine, sooner or later. I’d like to think we’ve raised them well.”

Oliver didn’t feel deserving of such a supportive reaction. Not when he had ditched his kids during a birthday trip, spending the entire night with a person they had never met.

Elio had filled his every cell and vein through the night but now, with Annie’s voice reminding him of everything else that still also existed, the guilt started to set in.

“I’ll be back in New York tomorrow,” Oliver assured Annie.

“I know.”

“I don’t have classes until in the afternoon, so I can take the morning train.”

“Okay.”

“And I’ll come over in the evening to see the boys. And I’ll take them next weekend just like always. Nothing’s going to change for them.”

“I know.”

“I think this is it, though, Annie,” Oliver said, lowering his voice, wanting to be honest with her. “We haven’t talked about too much about the future yet, and he’s just starting a concert tour, but…I think this is it.”

“I know. I knew before you left from here.”

He really, really didn’t deserve her. Or Elio, for that matter. For so many years, he had been stringing them along, not being honest about not wanting one or wanting the other, and things were now looking too good to be true. He hadn’t been good enough of a person towards anyone to be worthy of any of this. Why did he think he could suddenly have what he wanted? Shouldn’t he have thought of his children first, keeping their family intact, not blindly going after his selfish needs? Oliver was completely undeserving of anything that had happened since he had walked into the bar last night.

It was as if Annie heard his thoughts starting to spiral. “Just promise me one thing, Oliver?”

“What?”

“Don’t run away. Even if your feelings seem scary.”

Oliver sighed. “It does feel overwhelming.”

”That’s what it feels like when you’re...you know, falling in love.”

“It’s weird to talk to you about this.”

“I know. But I loved you,” she said with more than a little wistfulness in her voice. “It’s a great feeling. I want you to get to feel that too. Even if it isn’t with me. But I didn’t see all of you, obviously. Does he?”

Oliver nodded tentatively and then more assuredly. “I think he does.” _I like myself around him_ , he wanted to add, but thought that it wouldn’t have been fair to say that to Annie. Her goodwill seemed to stretch indefinitely but he didn’t want to find out where the limit was.

 

 

”How about that breakfast now?” Oliver suggested when he returned to the bedroom, relieved that the first of the weights on his shoulders had been lifted. Surely there would be several more waiting around the bends, but for now, he had at least told one person. And he would have an entire day with Elio ahead of him.

“Yes. There’s a good diner a couple of blocks away,” Elio replied. “But I need to take care of something first, too. Let me just make one call, would you give me the phone?”

Oliver handed him the phone and signaled towards the door. “Do you want me to leave?”

“No, no. Get back in here.”

Oliver lay next to him on the bed and Elio leaned his head against his as best he could, with the phone receiver between them.

Elio dialed the number.

“Hello?”

Oliver heard a faint, monotone customer service voice answering at the local courier company. Elio looked Oliver in the eye and smiled as he kept speaking.

“I’d like to schedule a pick-up for a box.” Elio’s thumb swept across Oliver’s bottom lip. “It’s about six pounds, seven maybe, I don’t really know. How quickly can you come and get it?”

 

 

“How does this feel so comfortable?” Elio asked as he cut into his stack of pancakes. They sat at his regular booth by the window at the diner. “Like this is a morning routine we have done since forever. But I haven’t seen you in ten years and even back then I didn’t really know you.”

“You knew me better than the people in my everyday life did.”

For a moment, Elio’s hand curled around Oliver’s fingers when he took the maple syrup Oliver handed to him.

“This just feels so normal. I guess it’s like this quote,” Elio started as he slathered his pancakes with the syrup, “–that I used to think about often. It’s about the idea that when a person is in love, it represents a normal state. It shows how that person should be.”

“Where is that from?”

“It’s Chekhov.”

“Chekhov. But wait, what did you say?” Oliver prodded.

Only now did Elio realize what he had accidentally let slip. He blushed.

“Can we pretend I didn’t say it? I mean, I didn’t mean to say it, and I don’t want to pressure you into saying anything back and–“ Elio’s eyes narrowed. “Stop smiling.”

“I’m not smiling,” Oliver said with the widest of smiles on his face.

“You are.”

“Can’t help it.”

“Fine,” Elio said his lips melting into a smile, too. “But I want it taken off the record. I didn’t want to say it like that.“

“Okay. Because it would be crazy for you to feel it so soon.”

“Right.”

Oliver looked at Elio intently. “And it would be even crazier if I felt that, too.”

“Absolutely,” Elio nodded.

“Right.”

The golden flecks met the bluest of blues in a gaze that clearly negated all of their words and shut out the outside world, until Elio cleared his throat. “So, we’ll forget that ever happened, okay?”

“Already forgotten.” Oliver’s smile said that it was anything but, and Elio first kicked him under the table but slipped off his shoe and let his foot rest on Oliver’s afterwards.

“What do you want to do today,” Elio asked by way of changing the subject.

“Are you expecting a different answer than ‘to go back to your place and never leave your bed’?”

Elio smiled as he stuffed another forkful of pancake into his mouth.

 

 

The entrance of a sprawling, Italian-speaking family into the diner prompted Oliver to comment: “Imagine if I really had ended up applying for the summer residence in Italy as your father’s assistant.”

“I definitely would have picked your application from the pile and campaigned for you,” Elio laughed.

“And imagine if I had come and lived with you for the summer.”

“You would have liked it. The scorching Italian summer. There is nothing to do at the villa but eat and drink and play and sunbathe. And my father would have liked having you with us. We always have throngs of people over, but he really would have enjoyed your company, I just know it.”

“Based on what you’ve told me, I would have enjoyed his company, too.”

“But I would have been so young. Would we have...?”

“I’d like to think you and I would have found each other, even then. In every parallel life. One way or another.”

“You wouldn’t have run off with the girls every night? They would have been all over you.”

“I may have had to pretend something like that, but I only would have had eyes for you.”

“Only me?”

“Only you.”

Of all the moments Elio had lived in his life up until then, that one was the happiest.

“My parents always gave my bedroom to the summer students, and I slept in the connecting room, in my grandfather’s old room.”

“Connecting room, you say? You could have sneaked into mine at night.”

“We would have had to be quiet.”

“We would have found ways to keep our mouths occupied.”

“Maybe we can go there in the summer. I want to see you lying by the pool, in nothing but swim shorts.” Elio caressed Oliver’s calf with his foot under the table.

“I’m surprised there are even swim shorts involved.”

“It’s only because it’s outside where anyone can see. No swim shorts when I sneak into your room.”

“You think I would be there waiting for you naked, don’t you?”

“No.” Elio’s eyes were dark as he leaned in over the table and watched Oliver’s expression closely. “You would be fully dressed, in respectable, light summer shorts and a shirt that would be half-open, and after we would get under the covers, you would, without me even asking, first undress me. I would want to be naked before you and then I would lie on the bed and wait for you. The villa and the room would be mine, but I would be all yours.”

Cheeks burning, Oliver asked when he could buy the tickets.

 

 

Half-way through the breakfast Elio spotted a wedding party outside. Through the window, he could see them taking pictures of the bride and groom in the middle of the empty street, their pristine white and inky black outfits contrasting with the spring-leafy trees and red-brick townhouses in the background.

The bride and groom leaned into each other for the photos, and the whole group gleefully shrieked and jumped aside whenever an unexpected car happened to ride by. Elio watched for a long moment, wistful. The couple belonged to each other, and everyone knew.

When he finally turned back to the table, Oliver was not looking at the people outside, but at him. Elio shrugged with a self-deprecating smile, embarrassed about having been so enthralled by the group.

Oliver reached over to cover Elio’s hand with his. He looked into Elio’s eyes and asked, with a surprise in his tone like he had just realized the certainty of it himself: “I’ll marry you one day, you know that, right?”

 

 

It takes six years of them being together, but he will.

On May 16th, 2004, Oliver casually suggests a late Sunday evening walk to the Cambridge City Hall, where white tulle decorations flow as same-sex couples wait to finally receive their marriage licenses when the clock strikes midnight and the day turns from sixteenth to seventeenth. The celebratory mood extends from the building’s front lawn to the supporting crowds blowing bubbles on the street, and Elio expects Oliver to pull him into the midst of people for that historical moment but instead, they stop to watch the scene from further away across the street.

Sounds of a choir singing The Beatles echo from the City Hall, and Oliver pulls out the _Happy Birthday_ note Elio had written to him on the napkin at Bar Stelle six years earlier.

Elio laughs, seeing his own handwriting. “You kept this?”

“Yes, but that’s not the point, you goose,” Oliver says. “Flip it over. I added something on the other sid–”

Elio says yes before he can finish the sentence.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Perhaps the feelings that we experience when we are in love represent a normal state. Being in love shows a person who he should be._ –Anton Chekhov
> 
> On May 17, 2004, Massachusetts as the first U.S. state started to give out marriage licenses to same-sex couples. The details in the last scene are based on [news](https://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/17/us/massachusetts-arrives-at-moment-for-same-sex-marriage.html) [articles](https://www.gaycitynews.nyc/stories/2004/11/the-party-starts-in-cambridge-2004-05-26.html) describing the celebrations at the Cambridge City Hall.
> 
> *
> 
> As this story comes to a close, I want to thank you so very much for reading another parallel life about these darling boys we all love so dearly, and for all comments and kudos and support. I loved spending time with them writing this and, as always, being able to share with all of you was the cherry on top.
> 
> Some of you asked about the possibility of a sequel in your comments on the previous chapter, but unfortunately I don’t have any continuation planned for this. I also feel that after that final glimpse into their future, their story is now complete from the reader’s perspective and we just leave them to live happily ever after :) (But I do hope to return with something else in the near-ish future if all goes well.)
> 
> *
> 
> Finally, I will leave you with a link that a lovely reader sent me earlier this week: it’s a [Modern Love column from New York Times](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/style/modern-love-lets-meet-again-in-five-years.html), written by a woman who made a five-year pact with someone in real life, agreeing to meet them “ _at the New York Public Library, near the uptown lion, at 4 p.m. on the first Sunday in April, five years from that spring._ ” It’s very sweet and yet realistic, please do check it out if you’d like. (Her sister’s worries about the situation paralleled Oliver’s: “ _You’re trying to live your life like a movie. Real life doesn’t work like that._ ” But maybe it sometimes does.)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I always love to hear what you think, will respond to all comments, and you can also find me on Tumblr at: [angel-in-new-york-city](http://angel-in-new-york-city.tumblr.com)


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